There’s no shortage of restaurants in Old Town where you can drop some serious coin. Bougie steaks, hipsterific small plates, 12-ingredient cocktails—they’ve all got a place here. But some of the best dining in all of Hong Kong is done on the cheap, at some hole-in-the-wall dai pai dong (open-air food stall) staffed by a no-nonsense grandma serving a single dish she’s worked her entire life to perfect. The sticky-sweet roasted duck and impossibly crispy pork belly at Yat Lok are so good, the restaurant earned a Michelin star. At Mak’s Noodle (there are a handful of copycats, but the original is on Wellington Street), the wonton noodle soup is a study in snappy texture and shrimpy goodness. Best to slurp quickly and move on to dessert—there are likely dozens of people waiting outside for your seat to open up. Speaking of sweets, Tai Cheong is an egg tart institution. The combination of bright yellow custard and buttery pastry is so otherworldly you won’t even notice the thousands of crust flakes left on your shirt. Brush them off and wash it down with some milk tea at Lan Fong Yuen, and, as always, keep it moving. There’s much, much more you need to eat before the day is done.
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