Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Cha Chaan Teng (Hong Kong Style Restaurant in Western Cuisine)

Want to have a cheap but nice western style breakfast in Hong Kong? Go "Yum Sai Cha".
Yum Cha is very common in Hong Kong, however, normally it takes an hour to complete a meal, because people like to read newspaper, gossiping during yum cha. However, for a fast breakfast in the modern city, I'd like to recommend you to go to "Yum Sai Cha", besides having fast food.

So, what is "Yum Sai Cha"?
In Cantonese pronunciation: "Yum" means "Drink", "Sai" means "West or western" and "Cha" means "Tea".

One of the majority role in "Yum Cha" is the chinese style tea. Therefore "Yum Sai Cha", is to have a meal with western tea or coffee.

Cha Chaan Teng are very common, they provide cheap western style cuisine, such as sandwich, toast, fried egg, ham, sausage etc. This is normally good for fast breakfast for me. If you haven't book breakfast from hotel, or don't want to "Yum Cha" every morning, let's try to find a Hong Kong style restaurant for "Western Tea". However, Cha Chaan Teng also serve lunch, tea and dinner, beside the above food, they also provide noodles, pasta, rice etc. Maybe you can have a trial during tea break, for a bowl of noodle there.

The chinese character of Cha Chaan Teng is 茶餐廳. Although you can find Cha Chaan Teng in almost every street, but they may not have english speaking staff and menu in residental district, so it is suggested that you can go to those in Central, Causeway Bay or Tsim Sha Tsui.

The photo is a typical breakfast in Hong Kong style restaurant.

3 comments:

George Lee said...

yep, I normally go to Cha Chaan Teng to have a fast breakfast before going to work. It is a little bit different from the fastfood like McDonanld ...

The food served in Cha Chaan Teng is normally of more good quality. And people in HK always rank the Cha Chaan Teng by how well they served milk tea and coffee.

By the way, Edmond, which Cha Chaan Teng do you recommend? :>

Anonymous said...

Ha, for me, I have no special preference of Cha Chaan Teng.

However, if we need to recommend one to our visitors, I think Tai Hing is better, since they are chain store and they also provide Siu-Mei (The chinese style BBQ, roast meat). Moreover, they have web site and have many branches in Central, Causeway Bay and Tsim Sha Tsui. It is easy for tourist to find one.

For example: G/F., Shop 1-3, Cigna Tower,
470-484 Jaffe Rd., Causeway Bay, at Exit C, MTR Causeway Bay Station, Opening Hours is 0730-0330

George Lee said...

I go to Tai Hing very often.

Let find some time to go to Tai Hing together. :P