‘Scrappy and so adaptable - like Hong Kong people’: Promoting the city’s iconic food

HONG KONG – Of all the Hong Kong dishes that popular foodie influencer Virginia Chan showcases on social media, her favourite, hands down, is cart noodles.

It’s the one dish that best embodies the spirit of Hong Kong and its people, she says.

“Cart noodles are super scrappy and so adaptable – exactly like Hong Kong people,” the content creator with 85,000 followers across Instagram and YouTube tells The Straits Times.

The soupy noodle dish, typically served with animal innards, was popularised by street hawkers with roving carts across Hong Kong in the 1950s.

Well-received then by poor labourers and new immigrants for being a cheap and highly customisable staple, it is now a beloved dish among locals in modern Hong Kong.

Its humble beginnings make up a precious piece of Hong Kong’s history, telling of how its people improvised with whatever they had to get through hardships, Ms Chan says.

“A lot of the cart noodles’ ingredients are innards that slaughterhouses used to either throw out or sell for cheap. Hong Kong people decided to just take it, stew it, and whack a soy soup base on it. There are infinite possibilities to cart noodles. That’s Hong Kong for you.”

Ms Chan, a Canadian-born Hong Konger, is among several foodie influencers who have been using social media to draw attention to Hong Kong’s heritage dishes in a bid to preserve a part of the fading local food culture.

A fading flavour of Hong Kong

Many traditional local eateries have been forced to shut in recent years, losing out to a wave of new mainland Chinese restaurants across the city and struggling to find successors to continue their businesses.

Over 2,000 restaurants shut between May 2024 and April 2025 – more than the 1,700 that opened in the same period, official data showed.

Among the big names that shut in 2025 were dim sum restaurant Metropol in Admiralty, congee chain Ocean Empire and bakery chain Taipan.

The wave of closures of such longstanding establishments threaten to erode the city’s unique local character, cultural heritage and vibrant dining scene.

The government has sought to preserve food heritage through a funding scheme that promotes authentic local dining experiences to tourists, as well as documenting traditional techniques of making dishes such as Hong Kong-style milk tea, egg tarts and pineapple buns.

“I’ve always wanted to showcase what’s ‘uniquely Hong Kong’ to the world, to retain our distinctive culture and build awareness around that,” says Ms Chan, whose full-time job is managing her local food and cultural tour company, Humid with a Chance of Fishballs Tours.

She has documented on social media how Hong Kong’s iconic wonton noodles are traditionally made using manual bamboo presses, how Cheung Chau’s famous peace buns – or “ping on bao” – are baked and stamped, and where to go for some of the best roast goose the city is famed for.

More recently, she covered the March 1 closure of Honolulu Coffee Shop, an 80-year-old diner, or “cha chaan teng”, known for its Hong Kong-style egg tarts and milk tea.

Like her social media presence, Ms Chan’s firm, set up in 2017, uses food as a platform to share about Hong Kong’s traditions, culture and heritage.

She got a big break in 2020 when she was featured on Netflix series Restaurants On The Edge, a makeover reality show aimed at reviving struggling eateries around the world.

“Having grown up abroad, in Vancouver, I understand what foreigners find fascinating about Hong Kong, its cuisine and its quirks,” says the influencer, who relocated to Hong Kong in 2012 shortly after completing her studies in human resources management in Canada.

“We can learn a lot about our history from the food we eat and why we eat it.”

Post-pandemic breaking point

Viral content creator Kent Wong – or Uncle K as he is known online – is similarly motivated to keep alive the legacy shops serving authentic Hong Kong cuisine.

He has amassed more than 460,000 followers hungry for his no-frills approach to Hong Kong food.

“Before the Covid-19 pandemic, many long-time Hong Kong chefs and eatery owners were already at retirement age; the post-pandemic economic slump became the breaking point for many legacy shops to close,” Mr Wong tells ST.

“The main reason is that the food and beverage sector is a physically demanding industry, and it’s hard to keep going without enough stamina.”

Additionally, more Hong Kong consumers have been regularly heading north to neighbouring Shenzhen for cheaper eats as cross-border transport services get more convenient.

Ms Chan believes all parties – consumers, eatery owners and landlords alike – have to bear some blame for the spate of legacy shop closures across Hong Kong.

“First, rent is really expensive, it’s hard for cheap street food providers to survive,” she says.

“The owners may have grown complacent and failed to evolve with the times in improving their service standards and food quality.

“We consumers are also always chasing after new restaurant openings, but seldom return to support the old-time eateries until we learn that they’re shutting for good.”

Tough times, new tricks

But Hong Kong’s F&B slump and increasingly challenging economy have a silver lining, Mr Wong says.

“When the economy is tough and office jobs are scarce, some young people are more willing to take over their parents’ legacy businesses,” he explains.

“We also see passionate young investors buying these old brands, bringing in fresh ideas and modern management, like using social media to reach new audiences.

“Over the past few years, I’ve seen many shops go from being unwelcoming to creators to being incredibly open after seeing how social media actually drives traffic,” he adds.

Mr Wong, who owns and runs a logistics firm, has chalked up a whopping 467,000 fans on Instagram and Xiaohongshu combined in just 3½ years.

While much of his content is focused on hyper-local dishes – such as where to find the best minced pork patty, pork chop buns and Cantonese congee, or the most authentic cart noodles – he has expanded his repertoire to cover Hong Kong eateries serving other cuisines.

“I’m driven by four ‘wins’,” he says. “The first is the personal satisfaction of my videos receiving a lot of love. Second, I help my audience find great food. Third, it brings more business to the restaurants. And finally, it helps attract tourists to Hong Kong.

“Whether for personal growth or for the public good, I find sharing food videos incredibly meaningful.”

The foodies using their social media platforms to save Hong Kong’s food culture aren’t limited to just locals – some mainland Chinese influencers have joined in too.

One such mainland influencer, known by her handle “Miaojiangerle”, or “Meow-chan is hungry”, has garnered 51,000 followers on Xiaohongshu. She has documented dozens of time-honoured Hong Kong eateries with their best local dishes over decades, including curry beef brisket, tender blanched pork liver and pineapple buns.

These footprints across social media platforms have helped keep Hong Kong’s beloved dishes in the public eye, and for some content creators, the mission has grown well beyond the screen.

Ms Chan’s firm has in recent years started working with the Hong Kong Tourism Board as one of its preferred food tour agencies. 

The firm has also expanded beyond arranging tailored private food tours to offering Hong Kong-style mahjong classes as well. The game is one of the city’s intangible cultural heritage activities.

Mr Wong, meanwhile, recently released his 2026 Hong Kong Food Map, which guides locals and foreigners through the city’s culinary landscape. English and Chinese versions are available for sale online.

“My goal is to create an annual guide that food enthusiasts can truly rely on,” he says.

“Every day, I wake up craving something different... Perhaps this ‘greed’ for variety is exactly why creating food content never feels tiring to me.”