Sing Heung Yuen — Restaurant in Hong Kong Island

Came to this popular dai pai dong with a colleague during lunch hour and boy was it busy. People are required to find seating for themselves, so get ready to wait for a while. This place is popular for serving cheap local eats such as instant noodles, pork chop buns, sandwiches etc. What you'll see people ordering however, are the condensed tomato broth based dishes which they are well known for. I don't expect this place to be a first choice for tomato haters (you know who you are). We ordered tomato macaroni & beef ($25) along with their famous crispy buns of which there are two choices: condensed milk & butter ($11) , and butter & honey with lemon ($11), we opted for both but they forgot our condensed milk bun (it was fine as we were full by then). Now I believe this place is very popular simply because there are not many open-air Dai pai dongs left in Hong Kong, especially in Central where the prices of food are hiked up almost everywhere due to the ludicrous rental prices here, as well as the fact that they've put a unique spin on local simple asian comfort food by the use of tinned tomatoes . The dishes come at a very fast pace (we got our dishes within 10 minutes) due to popular demand and people waiting to eat. The macaroni was in a thick tomato broth with bits of chunky tomato , there are huge tins of crushed tomatoes stockpiled next to the kitchen. It's a good dish for winter as thick broths can warm you up real nice, the broth itself not too sweet, not too sour, and had the perfect amount of seasoning and beef imparted flavour. The beef itself was tender, not chewy, making the dish gentle on the palate. Mind you don't expect the quality of the ingredients to be fantastic. They don't make their own macaroni or peel their tomatoes, this is comfort food at its best, cheap, fast, no fuss, no-frills yet very tasty.

The crispy buns arrived, and these delicious golden crispy buns were light and fluffy on the inside, flakey crust once pulled apart which I love in crispy bread (mmm this is how it should be done) , a thin layer of spread lemon butter gave it a nice acidic zing, not intense at all that you'd have to wash it off.

Now I'm not a tomato guy, but this place is a place to go if you're looking for the true local Hong Kong experience, there are many other cha chaan tengs you can find that serves food like this except for the tomato twist, so if you don't...

Best macaroni with tomato broth on the island side!

But you have to have the determination if will get quite hot or humid as it’s a very traditional hawker style restaurant. The staff are those very nice jei jei and they are willing to listen your order if you speak/point clear to what you need.

Even though it may not have a proper air-con seating area, you can still find it’s full of people on weekdays and Saturdays. And yes, it’s another place with full of hk style human warmth: quick, short words. But you will fastly adapt to it, as it applies to everyone because all people are here for the tomato broth.

The broth, it isn’t only canned tomato soup but it also had a whole big spoon of crushed tomatoes on top of the soup noodles. You could mix with as much as food choices you could find on the menu: egg, sausage, luncheon meat, pork chop, and of course the most famous beef. Also many noodles choice for you to choose too, but I would slightly prefer macaroni as the tomato broth will all go into the macaroni and when you eat it with the broth, it just makes you “wow”.

Apart from the tomato broth, the crispy lemon is the must-order side dish too. There are loads of choices you can try, and my all time favourite will be butter and honey with lemon crispy bun. It’s something you hardly find outside and goes very well with the macaroni. Oh yes, the iced sprite with salted lemon is so sour but refreshing for you before or after the meal.

If you don’t want to queue for long, make sure you arrive before 11. All in al it’s a very good brunch place for enjoying the last bite of localized...

I wouldn’t know what a “quintessential Hong Kong breakfast” is but judging by the amount of fancy cars that park in the narrow alley that houses this classic open-air Cha Chaan Teng and the number of diners from all walks of life who just make a bee-line to the next available seat, then this just might be it.

It’s the kind of breakfast you would never think of but end up reading about or watching about as a must-try. So after 4 visits to HK, I did finally try what they have to offer and it was mind-blowing. I love instant noodles and tomato sauce but I like them separately. When I told them I wanted the instant noodles with tomato sauce and egg and ham, they gave me instant noodles with tomato sauce but with no egg or ham. But despite the lost in translation moment, the dish was spectacular! I don’t know how it works but it just does. Trust me. We also tried the classic bread with condensed milk where the texture was heavenly-both sticky and crispy at the same time.

Although they don’t speak English and they may get your orders wrong from time to time, I do still highly recommend this place. If you’re lucky like we were, there is a man named Peter who wears a suit who can help out with...