I’m the only person in Chungking Mansions
who can speak Cantonese properly,
so a lot of customers look for me.
Hong Kongers who’ve had our food visit us again.
You can pick any dish here and all of them taste good.
So be careful, you will definitely drool.
Okay?
Are you going to block B?
Use the second elevator.
Thank you!
I’m Jacky. I’m in my 50s.
I’ve been in Hong Kong for many years. More than 50 years.
I’m one of the restaurant’s owners.
My dad came here in 1961.
After working for a few years,
he told the whole family to move here.
So we studied and grew up here.
When I graduated in 1984, I started helping my dad
with his masala curry business.
There weren't any restaurants
in Chungking Mansions at that time,
so many customers told me to open one.
Because we are experts at making curry.
Our curries are authentic.
This is prawn curry.
It’s our famous dish. Many people come for it.
We use fresh prawns.
We add cream
and cook it with masala.
Then we add 10 spices to the curry,
including salt, curry powder,
and ground coriander.
And we add onions, garlic, and tomatoes.
Then we cook it until it’s very thick and creamy.
Ready!
We add some cream to make it prettier.
This is cheese naan with cheese filling.
You can dip it in the curry.
Careful, it's hot.
The seafood taste is so rich!
Is it good? How would you rate it?
10 out of 10.
Thank you. It’s amazing!
Now we run four restaurants in the building.
Moti Palace opened in 2015.
This is our first restaurant. It opened in 1987.
The third one here is vegetarian.
My nieces help out.
My sister-in-law helps out too.
My younger brother is here.
I'm also here, and my elder brother sometimes comes too.
We are a family business.
Everyone here helps each other.
My duty is to stand in front of Chungking Mansions
and bring customers upstairs.
Ninety percent of our customers used to be Indians.
But we lost almost all our customers
during the pandemic after 2019.
That’s when I thought we should start welcoming Hong Kongers,
so I went downstairs to try and get customers.
Handsome, try our curry.
During my break, I’ll come upstairs to sit and chat with friends
and greet the customers.
A lot of them know me.
We have a great relationship.
I’ve taken over 2,000 photos with my customers.
We’ve become good friends.
Is it good?
Thank you!
Now I think all Hong Kongers are very nice.
When I first came (to Hong Kong), I still wore a joora (hair bun).
There weren’t many people
from South Asia in Hong Kong then.
Old women would swear at us,
kids would laugh at us, but we didn’t mind.
The only problem was we didn’t understand them
and they couldn’t understand us.
So we slowly learned the language
and played with the locals.
When I was first learning Cantonese, I was like,
“What are they talking about? It sounds exotic.”
We will keep living in Hong Kong,
and keep running our restaurant.
Hong Kongers are like our family.
You don’t chat when you work together?
No!
You don’t chat?
No no no. We know everything about each other.
What to say?
No need to say anything.
We have in our minds what to do.
I do my work, he does his work.
Everything is ok.