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TRADITIONAL Chinese STREET FOOD Tour of Hong Kong! BEST CLAY POT RICE!

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A day of dai pai dongs, cart noodles and charcoal-fired claypot rice across Hong Kong.

Mike Chen, the host behind Strictly Dumpling, spent a full day working through Hong Kong’s street food circuit with local guide Virginia, hitting stalls in Sheung Wan, Sham Shui Po, Kowloon City, Mong Kok and Sai Ying Pun. The itinerary ran from beef brisket and French toast in the morning to a charcoal-fired claypot rice dinner, with egg waffles, cart noodles, offal skewers and two separate egg tart shops packed in between. It’s the kind of marathon eating tour that has become Chen’s calling card, and this one leans hard into the traditional dai pai dong scene rather than tourist-facing restaurants.

• The tour ends at Kwan Kee Claypot Rice in Sai Ying Pun, a charcoal-fired institution known for its crispy scorched rice base, or fan jiu, topped with white eel, spareribs, or minced beef and egg.
• Islam Food (Chinese Islam Restaurant) in Kowloon City is featured for its pan-fried veal and beef pockets, a dish the guide flags as one of the neighborhood’s signature offerings.
• Chiu Chow Hop Shing Dessert in Kowloon City serves hashima, a traditional sweet soup made from dried snow clam (frog fallopian tube), alongside other Chiu Chow-style desserts.

Sheung Wan Starts the Day

The tour opens at Shui Kee, a Sheung Wan dai pai dong serving beef brisket and beef esophagus alongside Hong Kong-style French toast and iced milk tea. It’s a classic combination for the neighborhood — savory braised beef cuts paired with the deep-fried, syrup-soaked toast that’s a staple of Hong Kong cha chaan tengs. From there, Chen and Virginia stop at Oddies Foodies, where egg waffles get paired with soft-serve gelato, including a savory flavor built around lap cheong, Chinese sausage, showing how the city’s street snacks have started blending traditional forms with newer flavor combinations.

The pair then head to Sham Shui Po for Man Kei Cart Noodles, a customizable bowl format where diners pick their own broth, noodles and toppings. Chen orders water spinach — morning glory — tossed in fu yu, fermented bean curd, a pungent, salty pairing that’s a common way locals dress up cart noodle vegetables.

Kowloon City’s Chiu Chow and Islamic Chinese Fare

Kowloon City has a reputation among Hong Kong food guides as a pocket for Chiu Chow and Chinese Islamic cuisine, and the tour treats it that way. At Chiu Chow Hop Shing Dessert, the stop is built around hashima, the snow clam dessert soup that’s a delicacy in Chiu Chow sweet-soup tradition. Just around the corner, Islam Food — formally the Chinese Islam Restaurant — turns out its well-known pan-fried veal and beef pockets, a dish Virginia treats as a can’t-miss order in the neighborhood.

The egg tart comparison follows, pitting Hoover Cake Shop’s traditional puff-and-shortcrust pastry against Queen Sophie’s multi-layered puff pastry version — two different textures built from the same basic custard filling, and a debate that Hong Kong egg tart fans have been having for years.

Mong Kok’s Cooked Food Center and Cold Skewers

At Ladies Market Sik Fan Co. in Mong Kok, the tour drops into a nostalgic, indoor dai pai dong-style cooked food center — the kind of communal dining hall that’s become harder to find as Hong Kong redevelops. The order there includes roasted squab and stinky tofu bites. Nearby at Fei Jie Snacks, Chen works through cold braised street skewers: soy-marinated turkey kidney, pig intestines and cuttlefish, served with mustard and a sweet dipping sauce — a street-side format built for eating on the move between market stalls.

The Claypot Rice Finale in Sai Ying Pun

The day closes at Kwan Kee Claypot Rice in Sai Ying Pun, a shop built around charcoal-fired clay pots rather than gas or electric burners, which locals credit for the deeper char on the rice crust at the bottom of each pot.

The whole dish is judged on the fan jiu — the scorched rice crust — and Kwan Kee tops it with everything from white eel to spareribs to minced beef and egg.

Ordering a claypot at a shop like Kwan Kee means a wait — charcoal claypots cook slower than a standard kitchen setup — but it’s the payoff for the whole day of walking and grazing, and it’s why the tour saves it for last rather than working it into the middle of the itinerary.

Chen’s willingness to sit through a full day of dai pai dong lines and back-alley stalls is the same formula that’s built Strictly Dumpling’s following, and it’s the same appetite for oddball endurance content that shows up elsewhere on the internet, whether that’s a food crawl or something like a channel’s world’s most dangerous escape room stunt. For Hong Kong regulars, though, the real takeaway is simpler: if you’re only hitting one claypot rice shop in Sai Ying Pun, make it the one with the charcoal fire.