A Hong Kong cooked food market is basically composed of “Dai Pai Dong” style restaurants operating indoors with air conditioning and free WiFi. Most cooked food markets in HK operates in a government-owned building, hence the free WiFi. During dinner times, you can see many families/couples eating there as cooked food market stalls not have the 10% service charge/peanuts/xo sauce/tea charge/corkage fee that most HK restaurants charge. Cooked food markets can be found in almost every single district in HK sometimes more than one.

A list of the different stalls located inside the Queen Street Cooked Food Market. ABC Kitchen is quite famous and has been featured on Time Out HK. During this visit there were also alot of office workers and expats sitting at ABC Kitchen’s tables. One reason is because ABC serves a spectacular Spanish style roast sucking pig 西班牙烤乳豬. Another would be the fact that it is BYOB. Corkage fees at most places in HK start at 200HKD($30USD) and go upwards of $600HKD($78USD). Will wait for hubby to try the pig out as I am not a huge fan of pork.

The food stall during lunchtime. There were around 3 large tables of construction workers not wearing their tops to the left of this picture, but I don’t think they would appreciate me taking their pics especially as one kept on looking at me as if daring me to take a pic.

I decided on Indian food as I have not had it in the two months that I have been in HK. I ordered the set lunch of vegetable curry. Chautari’s menu was pretty interesting as it has a section of pork curries which I have previously never seen in an Indian restaurant before. Perhaps it is because it is Indian/Nepalese, or perhaps it is the fact that Hong Kongers LOVE pork.

My vegetable curry set lunch. It comes with a drink, naan, and soup. Everything was good except for the soup. Total cost $40HKD($5USD). The portion size of the curry is quite small. It had 3 small florets of cauliflower, some string beans, some carrots, and a quarter sized potato. I was hungry 2 hours after this meal.

9/7/2012 Edit: Tried ABC kitchen’s Spanish Style roast pig, while it was good, I found it expensive. Around $160HKD for 3 pieces of roast pig. The dumpling place is decent. Chan Choi Kee is pretty good, I especially like with fried fish fillet with eggplant.

Overall: This is my second time in this cooked food market. The first time, I had Thai which was not too good as it catered to HK taste and lost touch with its thai roots even though it is owned by Thai’s. I am looking forward to trying ABC kitchen, the dumpling place, and Chan Choi Kee. Beware that this place is not for everyone, especially people who don’t like to see topless men of varying ages during lunch/dinner times. additionally there is no atmosphere to speak of. But if you are curious to see where the local Hong Kongers eat, then definitely come here. Chen Chai Ji attracts a huge crowd of locals having lunch and dinner. I have seen tables set up for 12 in Cantonese Banquet style at Chen Chai Ji’s tables. A note to New Yorkers: This place is like the Golden Mall food court in Flushing…so if you do not like that atmosphere, do not come here.