I'm on a semi-retired models quest to eat my way through Hong Kong or any other city I travel to
with the help of food bloggers
I want to learn more about the culture,
meet new people and discover exciting new tastes in the places I'm in.
Today we're having vegetarian food
There's over 200 vegetarian restaurants in Hong Kong feeding three percent of the city's population
and that number continues to grow fast
You can find different takes on vegetarian food here with different cultural and religious influences
this episode We'll take you to a traditional chinese tea house
than a western-style 50s themed diner
Really good
and finish with the Buddhist restaurant
Today, we begin in admiralty and we're meeting Erika
Hi, I am Erika. I am studying university in Hong Kong
I started my food blog like an year ago
and I would say vegetarianism is not actually very prominent in Hong Kong
Compared to other countries like LA. They have tons of all of vegan food
but it's getting more popular recently
would you say like the Hong Kong younger generation now is more into it as compared to the older
generation.
I actually
Don't know
Cause like older people that say my grandparents, they have vegetarian meals, especially for the Chinese buddhist
but
For my grandparents they do
Have different vegetarian meal during times like Chinese New Year but are not fully vegetarian
So they eat meat on normal daily basis, but just on special occasion, or maybe they have a prayer
Some kind of special occasions. They do have vegetarian meal
But as for the younger generations, I would say it's it's more of the mindset of being a vegetarian and more of
Being healthy itself and maybe environmentally friendly,
so more and more people go in to the vegetarianism
I see so you think the younger generation is more health-conscious
but the older generation is more to to religion
yeah
All right, let's get eating.
As you saw in a previous episode, I love dim sum
So when my friend Kelly introduced me to this first place it instantly became a favorite of mine
It's in a beautiful traditional tea house set in one of my favorite parks in Hong Kong
Sometimes when it's sunny outside, you see a lot of people painting
or like performing and being creative
But yeah, today it's raining.
But I don't think there are a lot.
Usually those are the office ladies coming for a walk
They have sat in the office for like an all day long, right? Uh-huh
I'm not sure cuz there aren't like so much artsy people in Hong Kong. Oh, really?
Oh, really? Why do you think people aren't that artsy today's?
Cause they don't get paid really well?
True
But in Paris, in London, people are so much artsy.
They have dance for saying because exactly like a dance, but it's just for a hobby
But yeah, it's hard
I think Asian parents are very hard on their children right to like go to school and get those
very secure higher paying jobs that are like guaranteed type thing
It's like the mom mindset they want you to be
Well paid, they want you to have an iBank job
was definitely hard here because the apartment and everything is so expensive. You don't really have a choice
You can't get an apartment.
It sounded so nice with the bird.
We're now at the Lok Cha tea house and they have all vegetarian and also vegan
dim sum and they have a huge selection
It is so quiet in here
I'm like a bull in a china house
what is that the same bull and uh, never mind. Okay. There's a lot of teas.
Soon as you sit down they turn this on for you. So you always have boiling hot water ready.
And then they, you choose your tea
They bring you the leaves
and then you can just keep pouring your own tea.
Here we go Butterfly loves? Double Happiness?
very romantic names
Rising Sun or joyful rain?
I think we should go joyful rain.
Alright for today. Alright, let's do that.
They give you one that stays really hot
And then you pour it into here so that this cools down while you're drinking this one
So that you always have like perfectly the right temperature tea to drink
You know for Chinese people we always do its thing
yeah it like thank you or that's enough type of thing. Yeah. Yeah
Do you think it is weird?
No, I think it's like really
yeah, but it's funny that you just don't say thank you or let you do this why
I think it's from one of the Chinese emperor tradition, but i am not sure of that
so it's like the gesture of
Bowing and like knocking the head is like, thank you
The inside is full of flavors and textures because some of the vegetables are still a bit crunchy
Hmm, but then there's a lot of softness in it as well. Yep
The texture wise is quite good
The new wannabe foodie versus actual foodie.
I love when I see photos actually like this with all the dim sum
But it's better when it's more colourful
I am just copying you
copying my angles
So what is it inside
I believe this one's a mixture of mushrooms, but it looks like there's other vegetables inside too
This place is really good
Now that we've had some Eastern style vegetarian food we're gonna head to try some western style
Show me your superpower
magnet girl
You should get all there's a knife out that they could stab people
We have a big piece here
We got the Kobe burger, which is a vegan burger patty with some potato wedges and salad
We all love potatoes
actually I am speaking, do you love potatoes?
Okay, I just spoke for everyone
we got more wedges on the side
Nuggets, vegan scallops, which I'm really curious what this is
These are really good
It's really very nuggets
It taste like chicken?
Yeah
This one is mushroom so it tastes like a mushroom with some barbecue sauce
But it's cooked really well and it's really juicy on the inside.
Look at that crisp.
It smells so good
It smells like garlic bread
on a potato, which is even better
Actually the chips with the skin
so it actually adds all the layer
Yeah, it is really good, I love them keep the skin too
This burger is huge
So I can just bite
You want to?
No
We were amazed at two things
how the food tasted so close to meats equivalent
as well as the 50s inspired decor and antiques
To finish the day we headed to TST for some Buddhist food.
I want to show you something
I was always afraid of until I knew what it was
This is one of the interesting foods because I saw it when I came in
There's a lot of there was a lot of places selling it on the street and I wasn't sure what it was
But it's actually vegetarian meat basically
actually you can get some of the similar in a crispy form at convenience stores like the 7-11
we have some vegetarian snacks as well.
This one is wheat gluten that is marinated.
This one is a
compressed tofu
It's a pressed tofu
It's very sweet
so this is actually
In Shanghai cuisine as well.
yes, so usually for Shanghai people they have this as appetizer.
So this one is a lot sour than the bean curd
so together they work well like this sweet and sour hmm
Fake shrimp style. Is this suppose to be sweet and sour?
I think so
Chinese people cook this one during Chinese New Year as well.
This dish?. Actually one of my favorite dishes in Hong Kong
I really love this one
It's bean curd as well
Mmm the difference between Chinese and West Western vegetarian food. It's mainly
I feel like the Western ones, they're more of like salad raw materials and ingredients
The burger is not that
Yeah, but for for the Chinese style ones we never got raw
it's usually
Braised and marinated
it's kind of basically this is trying to get as close to meat dishes
The traditional meat dishes as possible without having the meat. Yeah
I think that Western people really like sweet and sour sauce
when they go chinese, they always have sweet and sour sauce
Yep, and that's why if I'm in a foreign country
The Chinese restaurants on foreign countries. There must be sweet and sour
We don't know this actually is similar to the like Canadian or American style Chinese food.
Mm-hmm. It's all in batter
Mm-hmm. Our food is very like battered and with a lot of sauces. It really reminds me of that
But here you never find a fortune cookie
You never find sweet and sour chicken balls
unless you come to the vegetarian places. You'll find it's a little bit similar
We never got fortune cookies in Hong Kong.
I was in the states and every Chinese restaurant there is fortune cookies
but never in Hong Kong here
Where does it actually come from
I'll have to look it up
So this is the end of this episode thank you so much for joining Erika
I'm gonna Inc Erika
I'm gonna link Erika's stuff below
but was your favorite thing of the day?
I actually really liked the
Nuggets
2nd place where the nuggest was so authentic. Yeah, what's her favorite?
I really liked the dimsum
I loved dimsum and then having it so many vegetarian, right?
Yeah, it's really really nice.
If you guys enjoyed this episode and learned a little bit about the differences between
Chinese or Asian
vegetarian food versus Western
and that you saw some new things because I definitely didn't see
The things especially that we just ate at the end in Canada
And I hope you can try one day if you come here.
Alright. Thanks for watching
You