Must-Go Kowloon Part 2: Yau Ma Tei, Mong Kok, TST

The southern half of Kowloon is denser, louder, and more touristy than the Sham Shui Po lanes we covered in Part 1. It is also where most of the city’s classic late-night street food lives. Yau Ma Tei alone has two of the most photographed food queues in Hong Kong, Mong Kok added a flagship cookie shop opposite Langham Place last year, and the cooked food bazaar tucked under the flyover at Tsim Sha Tsui has somehow survived nearly half a century of urban renewal. We spent an evening walking the seven spots below from north to south, finishing with a late dinner under fluorescent lights in TST. Bring an empty stomach.

Quick Info: The Route

1. Cookies Quartet (曲奇四重奏 旺角MPM店)

Start at Mong Kok Station, Exit E1. Walk ten metres straight ahead and you are at the new Cookies Quartet flagship store, opened in November 2024 directly across the road from Langham Place. The brand was founded by former Miss Hong Kong Tse Ning, and the cookies they bake here have become one of the most recognisable Hong Kong-souvenir items at the airport. The MPM store doubles the existing branches: a polished retail floor with the full butterfly palmier range, the four signature cookie blends (the “quartet” of the name), and a rotating set of seasonal collaborations. The Christmas tin is the one to grab in December and worth carrying back to Langham Place for the photo with their tree if it is up. Open 10am to 10pm daily. The shop is small but the queue moves quickly.

2. Fei Jie Snack Shop (肥姐小食店)

A four-minute walk south from Cookies Quartet brings you to Dundas Street and the most Instagrammed cold-marinade snack stand in Kowloon. Fei Jie has been running for nearly fifty years out of the same tiny shopfront on Dundas, queuing up locals from 3pm until everything sells out, usually around 10pm. The signature is the ice-cold marinated cuttlefish (墨魚), but the queue is really there for the marinated pig intestine (大生腸), which the shop is best known for. Other items rotating through the trays include marinated squid (魷魚), turkey gizzard (火雞肙), pig tongue (豬舌), pig liver (豬潤), pig heart (豬心), and duck tongue (鴨舌). Everything comes on bamboo skewers, served with two sauces: yellow mustard and sweet sauce. Order a few skewers for HK$30 to HK$80 total and eat standing on the kerb, the way the line in front of you has been doing for decades.

3. Wo Shun Kee Pak Street (和順記 碧街)

Three minutes south of Fei Jie is Wo Shun Kee, a tiny noodle-and-rice shop on Pak Street that has somehow built a cult around a single dish: the deep-fried chicken drumstick (生炸雞髀). The drumstick is brined in a Korean-style four-hour marinade made from pineapple, carrot, lemon, tomato and fruit juice before going into the fryer, and the result is a juicy, peppery leg with a thin crisp shell. The default order is the chicken drumstick rice (雞髀飯) topped with a sunny-side-up egg, which sells out by lunch on busy days. The menu also covers braised pork hand rice (豬手飯), salt-and-pepper pork chop rice, and curry chicken egg rice. Closed on Sundays so plan around that. Cash and Octopus accepted, no booking.

4. Tai On Tea Restaurant (大安茶冰廳)

Walk five minutes west from Wo Shun Kee to Canton Road for Tai On, the 1969-opened bing sutt that was bought by a new operator a few years ago and reopened as something between a traditional Hong Kong tea cafe and a modern Korean-style coffee shop. The bones of the old shop are still there: original water-bar booths, the open kitchen, the wood trim. The menu has been overhauled. The signature now is the lava egg tart (流心蛋撻) at HK$28, a soft-yolk version of the classic Cantonese tart that goes out of the oven in batches and disappears within the hour. Other items worth the visit are the lemon tea cookies (檬茶曲奇), the apricot syrup roll cake, the ginger milk pudding tart and the corn soup French toast. The egg tarts are the move; the milk tea has been replaced by speciality coffee and a hojicha latte, both well made.

5. Temple Street Night Market (廟街夜市)

When you have eaten the egg tart, walk south down Temple Street for the Hong Kong night-market experience that you have seen in every TVB drama. Temple Street is one stop, a strip of permanent food stalls plus seasonal hawker pop-ups that runs two blocks south of Tin Hau Temple. Open after dark, peak crowd between 20:00 and 22:00. There is no single shop to recommend; the move is to walk the strip and pick from the queues. The current standouts are the claypot rice (煲仔飯) at Hing Kee, charcoal-fired with proper wok hei; the deep-fried pig intestine (炸大腸) at the Tao Po stall, sliced onto bamboo skewers with sweet sauce and mustard; the satay skewers from the Temple Street stalls with three spice levels; and the carrot cake (煎釀三寶) griddled to order. Prices are higher here than in Sham Shui Po, but you are paying for the after-dark setting as much as the food.

6. Two Greens (兩草, Tsim Sha Tsui)

For the Tsim Sha Tsui leg, take the MTR from Yau Ma Tei two stops south and you are in TST. Two Greens (兩草) is a small Hong Kong-Malaysian cafe on Cameron Lane founded by a Malaysian transplant who paired Cantonese cha chaan teng staples with Malaysian flavours. The name is local slang for HK$20, which is roughly what the founder set as the target price for the original menu. The cafe became famous after celebrity actress Anita Yuen (袁詠儀) and her husband Julian Cheung named it as a regular spot. The signature is the crispy-edged egg and meat patty rice (香煎脆邊蛋肉餅飯), where a sunny-side-up egg with lacy, dark-brown crisp edges sits atop a steamed pork patty. Other dishes that ring bells across reviews are the kaya toast (咖央多士), the egg-fried rice noodle (蛋炒豬腸粉) and the whole-garlic pepper pork soup. The brand has multiple HK locations; the TST branch fits the Kowloon route best.

7. Haiphong Road Cooked Food Market (海防道熟食市場)

Finish at Haiphong Road, a five-minute walk west from Two Greens. This is the kind of place you walk past for years and never realise is there: a covered market tucked under the flyover at the edge of Kowloon Park, with nine cooked-food stalls operating side by side. The market has been here for over forty years and went through a full renovation in 2020 that gave it bright lighting, wider aisles and a clean floor without losing any of the dai pai dong character. The stalls run the full Cantonese spectrum: stir-fried clams, salt-and-pepper squid, soy sauce chicken, beef brisket noodles, claypot rice, and a separate dessert stall doing tofu pudding and red bean soup. Order a couple of dishes, share, repeat. Most stalls cap at HK$80 to HK$120 a plate. Prices are noticeably below TST average. Cash is preferred at most stalls; some take Octopus.

The Practical Route

Start at Mong Kok Station Exit E1 in late afternoon for Cookies Quartet (a quick browse, no need to eat). Walk south on Portland Street to Dundas Street for Fei Jie at the start of opening time, around 3pm, before the queue builds. Continue south on Pak Street to Wo Shun Kee for an early dinner of chicken drumstick rice. Cut west to Canton Road for an egg tart and coffee at Tai On. Walk south down Temple Street as the night market lights come on, eat your way through the satay and claypot rice stalls. From Yau Ma Tei Station, take the MTR two stops south to Tsim Sha Tsui. Hit Two Greens on Cameron Lane for the egg pork patty rice if you have any room left, then finish at Haiphong Road Cooked Food Market for late drinks and one final shared plate.

Total walking time across the Yau Ma Tei stops is about 25 minutes. The TST leg adds another 15 to 20 minutes including the metro hop. Plan four to five hours from Mong Kok arrival to last bite at Haiphong Road.

Practical Tips

Dress for an evening of standing in queues; most of these spots have minimal seating. Bring HK$500 in cash to cover the cash-only stalls (Fei Jie, Temple Street, several Haiphong stalls). Avoid Sundays for Wo Shun Kee, which is closed. Avoid Mondays for any classic shop in this district, as several run reduced hours. The Temple Street night market is the centrepiece, so do not start it too early or you miss the atmosphere. Families with kids: do the daytime stops (Cookies Quartet, Wo Shun Kee, Tai On) and skip the late-night Temple Street section, which gets crowded and rowdy after 22:00.

Read More

• Must-Go Kowloon Part 1: Sham Shui Po Food Crawl
• Hong Kong night markets and street food
• More Kowloon neighbourhood guides
• Weekend things to do in Hong Kong