Must-Go Kowloon Part 1: Sham Shui Po Food Crawl

Every expat in Hong Kong eventually hears that Sham Shui Po is where the real food is. The tricky bit is knowing where to actually stop. Pei Ho Street alone has a dozen legitimate claims to the title, the MTR exits come out at different ends of the neighbourhood depending on where you need to go, and half the shops close by 7pm. We spent a recent Saturday walking the five spots below in a single loop, starting at Sham Shui Po Station and ending at Prince Edward, roughly 20 minutes of total walking between all stops. This is Part 1 of our Kowloon must-go list. Part 2 covers Yau Ma Tei, Mong Kok and Tsim Sha Tsui.

Quick Info: The Route

1. Kung Wo Beancurd Factory (公和荆品廠)

Your first stop out of Sham Shui Po Exit B2. Kung Wo is the oldest running beancurd shop in the neighbourhood and the one Hong Kong Tourism Board photographers come to when they want a photogenic bowl of tofu. The shop still uses its original stone mills for the morning grind, which you can see through the open-fronted shopfront on Pei Ho Street. Three things to order: the hot soy milk (豆漿), the warm tofu pudding (豆腐花) dusted with yellow sugar, and the pan-fried stuffed tofu (煎釀豆腐) served with sweet soy sauce. All three come in well under HK$25. The shop is tiled and utilitarian, with a row of stand-up counters along the wall and no real seating to speak of. That is the point. Buy a bottle of soy milk to take away and walk it down the street to your next stop.

2. Hung Fat Herbal Tea (鴻發涼茶)

Walk ten metres north along Pei Ho Street from Kung Wo and you are outside Hung Fat, a takeaway window serving the other half of old Sham Shui Po: traditional herbal tea and Cantonese sweet-bowl desserts. The shop has no seating, just a counter that opens onto the street and a board of handwritten Chinese prices. The must-order is the black sesame pudding (黑芝麻糕), a silky sesame block sold by the slice for HK$8. It is made fresh every morning, the sesame is ground thick enough to read like a paste rather than a powder, and at that price it is essentially the cheapest good dessert in Kowloon. The other items worth trying are the traditional steamed pudding cups (缽仔糕) in brown sugar or red bean. For herbal drinks, the five-flower tea (五花茶) is the standard order in warm weather. Cash only.

3. Sang Lung Bakery (生隆餅家)

Now walk back down Pei Ho Street past Kung Wo to number 66, where Sang Lung Bakery has been baking traditional Cantonese buns since the 1960s. This is a neighbourhood institution: a plain-fronted shop with a glass display case stacked with steamed puddings, mochi, and hot Chinese pastries that come out of the oven in small batches all morning. The default order is the 缽仔糕, small cups of steamed rice cake in two colours (white sugar and brown sugar), and the 白糖糕, a honeycomb-textured slab of fermented rice cake. Also look for the sesame roll (芝麻卷), a thin sheet of steamed sesame paste rolled like a Swiss roll, and the hard sweet biscuit 光酥餅. Everything costs under HK$12 a piece. Closed Mondays, open 7am to 7pm the rest of the week. Get here before 5pm if you want the full selection.

4. San Hung Yuen Kin Kee Cha Chaan Teng (新香園堅記)

A three-minute walk south to Kweilin Street drops you at San Hung Yuen, the unofficial king of the Sham Shui Po egg sandwich. It is a classic bing sutt (冰室) rather than a full cha chaan teng: small, fluorescent-lit, wood-trim booths, the kind of dining room that has not been redecorated since the 1980s. The one dish everyone orders is the toasted egg and beef sandwich (烘底蛋牛治), a pressed and griddled milk bread sandwich filled with a thick cut of scrambled egg and stir-fried minced beef in oyster sauce. The 烘底 detail is the trick, the bread gets toasted on the flat-top until crisp on the outside while staying soft in the middle. Pair it with a Hong Kong-style milk tea. The shop is open 24 hours, so if you are doing this crawl in the evening and getting hungry, come back here for a late-night sandwich. Cash and Octopus accepted.

5. Heartwarming Black Sesame (暖心芝作)

The final stop is a seven-minute walk north-east to Prince Edward Station, or a five-minute MTR hop from Sham Shui Po. Heartwarming is the Michelin Bib Gourmand-listed black sesame specialist that opened on Yu Chau Street a few years ago and immediately developed a queue that has not let up since. The shop grinds its sesame on a pair of traditional stone mills right in the front of the store, and everything on the menu starts from that base. The must-order is the black sesame soft serve ice cream (黑芝麻雪糕), served in a hand-filled cone with the sesame taste pushed almost to the point of bitter. The second order is the lava sesame pudding (黑芝麻流心奶黃), a warm custard cup with a molten sesame centre that spills onto the spoon. Traditional sweet bowls of double-boiled sesame soup (糊) are also on the menu for anyone who wants the old-school version. The Bib Gourmand listing made the queue worse, so expect 15 to 30 minutes on weekend afternoons.

The Practical Route

The cleanest way to walk this is to exit Sham Shui Po Station at B2, which puts you directly onto Pei Ho Street. Turn right (north) for Kung Wo at number 118. Walk ten more metres to Hung Fat at 128. Double back south past Kung Wo and continue to Sang Lung at number 66. From there, cut east through the wet-market lanes to Kweilin Street for San Hung Yuen. Finish by walking north-east for about ten minutes through the residential streets to Prince Edward MTR Station, where Heartwarming is two minutes from Exit D. Total walking time: about 18 to 22 minutes between all five stops.

If you prefer to reverse the order and finish in Sham Shui Po, enter at Prince Edward Station Exit D for Heartwarming first, then walk the reverse path south-west back to Sham Shui Po Station for the pickup end. Either direction works.

Practical Tips

Bring a small amount of Hong Kong cash for Kung Wo, Hung Fat and Sang Lung, which are still cash-only or cash-preferred. The rest accept Octopus. Do not plan this for a Monday: Sang Lung is closed and several of the other shops also run reduced hours. The savoury stop at San Hung Yuen runs 24 hours so it handles dinner or late-night, while the sweet stops (Sang Lung, Kung Wo, Hung Fat, Heartwarming) trade better in the morning or early afternoon. For families, the walk is flat and stroller-friendly, but Sham Shui Po itself is a dense working-class district, so keep an eye on strollers in the crowded market lanes.

Read More

• More Kowloon neighbourhood guides
• Sham Shui Po guides and reviews
• Hong Kong food crawls for expats
• Weekend things to do in Hong Kong