Mouthing Off | Hong Kong’s latest food trend – cheap takeaway rice boxes with toppings – reflects hard times in the city
- Food stalls have sprung up around Hong Kong, selling cheap and cheerful rice boxes with a couple of side dishes
- Driven by the suspension of evening dining in restaurants, these stalls fulfil a need, the main downside being the waste generated by the packaging
The biggest Hong Kong food trend of 2022 is probably not what you’d expect.
It’s not some nouveau-gastro movement started by artisanal-minded chefs deeply connected to their native terroir, pursuing organic yet authentic cooking techniques to elevate the Escoffier tradition while remaking it for modernist palates.
Nope, what’s taking the city by storm is nondescript food stalls selling rice boxes topped with your choice of two or three side dishes. It is blue-collar meals made on the cheap, sold to those on a tight budget trying to fill their stomach as inexpensively as possible.
None of these slop shops will ever make anyone’s gourmet list, but over the past year they’ve popped up everywhere – well, maybe not so much in posh parts of town like Mid-Levels and Repulse Bay. But everywhere else working-class folks live, you’re bound to find a new outlet with a queue snaking around the corner.
For about HK$40 (US$5), you can get a big scoop of rice topped with an equally generous paddle of entrées. Depending on the shop, there might be 10 to 15 different dishes served from large trays.