Stream free On Demand
The Streets Hong Kong
series • cooking
G
series • cooking
G
At Hong Kong Tea Cafe in East Victoria Park, Perth, you'll find beef macaroni soup next to luncheon meat, club sandwiches, instant noodles and steak.
Cuisine confusion? No. This is the comfort of a cha chaan teng.
A cha chaan teng (tea restaurant) is a uniquely Hong Kong eatery. It sits somewhere between cafe and diner – a place that you can stumble in mid-morning and enjoy a warm cup of milk tea, or swing by in the evenings for a steak served on a sizzling hotplate. Like a diner, time stretches lazily within its walls. Breakfast is served late into the afternoon. Heavier comforts, like pork chops with a side of spaghetti, aren't reserved for dinner – they're on your plate at noon.
To fully understand the solace found in a cha chaan teng, you must look at the colonial history of Hong Kong. Imported goods like caster sugar and evaporated milk, together with Western dining culture, expanded in Hong Kong under the British, where it met the tenacity and entrepreneurial spirit of Hong Kongers. With time, these influences blossomed into interpretations of Cantonese-European food, where cakes and buns were served with milk tea, and spaghetti was served alongside rice and pork cutlets.
This was the comfort that manager Kathleen Low and chef Kevin Cheung looked to bring to Victoria Park. You'll see it in the menu, which lists toast alongside pineapple buns (which gets its name from the cross-hatching on top of the bun, rather than having a pineapple-like flavour), satay beef and instant noodles.
King of all cha chaan teng staples is the macaroni soup, a thin red tomato-based soup with macaroni. Low tells SBS Food, "The macaroni is very filling." This is what food at cha chaan tengs was historically about offering sustenance for workers.
Hong Kong Tea Cafe's macaroni soup starts with a 'borscht' soup (with tomatoes rather than beetroot), with lots of vegetables, topped up with beef. It's served as a set meal with a generously thick piece of toast and an omelette with ham
I can eat a few times in a week.
The influences go beyond the plate. Inside, the walls are plastered with neon lights, reminiscent of the streets of Mong Kok. There's a large TV playing old-school Cantonese movies and music. While the decor leans modern, with sleek green finishings and faux-leather booths.
You'll find tables of aunties and uncles speaking in rapid-fire Cantonese next to young couples. In a beat, tables are wiped down, and young couples are replaced by young families, thanks to the fast-paced service. Low explains that the high-tempo convenience of a cha chaan teng reflects its history as a no-fuss spot where workers could fill up quickly and get on with their day. This fits in perfectly with the beat of modern-day Victoria Park, which is a stone first-timer throw away from Curtin University, nestled in a bustling food strip.
For first timers, Low suggests ordering the baked fried rice in tomato sauce with a side of milk tea. The baked fried rice comes in a metal dish, and its creamy richness goes perfectly with the bittersweet milk tea. Hong Kong Tea Cafe's milk tea uses Ceylon tea leaves imported from Hong Kong, with a dash of evaporated milk.
Of course, in the end, it's all about comfort. Comfort comes in heavy swaths: heavily buttered buns, baked rice topped with a creamy sauce, a plate with a mountain of steak, pork chops and fried chicken. As for Low's favourite cha chaan teng comforts? "I like baked fried rice with pork chop in tomato sauce. I can eat a few times a week. The tomato sauce is very appetising and the pork chop is tender and juicy." And for drinks, she goes for a chocolate ice cream and regular Coke mix - known as a black cow. It echoes the spider, a drink that brings memories of Australian summer comforts bubbling to the fore.
All of this to say, nothing is confusing about comfort.
Comfort demands to be felt, to be experienced and, in the case of Hong Kong Tea Cafe, to be eaten.
4/800 Albany Hwy, East Victoria Park,
Perth, Western Australia
