Vegetarian in Hong Kong

I was in Hong Kong 1-4 Jan and getting vegetarian food is more difficult that I expected.

I was staying in Tsim Sha Tsui, some where near Chungking Mansion. So there is always Indian vegetarian food to fall back on in the worst case. But I wasn't too keen on that.

Through the Happy Cow website, I found a few vegetarian restaurants.

What I found was that restaurants seems to be the only option available, and they don't work well for a lone traveller like me. I took a look at a few restaurant's menu. Dishes were generally HK$40 upwards. If I order 2 dishes, with the pluses (service charges and taxes), it will add up to something like HK$100, with probably too much food for 1 person as well. That's kind of expensive.

To be fair, at HK$40 - HK$50 a dish, it's comparable to the restaurants in Singapore. However, I do not eat at restaurants every meal -- it's too expensive! If I weren't alone, I would probably try a few of the vegetarian restaurants.

Besides, the vegetarian restaurants were not easy to find. I had to write down the addresses from Happy Cow to find them. Whereas in Taiwan, I can easily run into a vegetarian eatery while I wonder around.

There are many small eateries around but they do not offer vegetarian options. Many primarily sell meat (e.g. roast meat, BBQ meat etc). The ubiquitous Hong Kong style "tea restaurants" (cha chan teng 茶餐厅) do not have vegetarian food other than plain steam rice rolls and toast.

It took some effort, but in the end, I got by quite alright.

I was staying in a guest house along Cameron Road. The nearest vegetarian restaurant was the Ah Sin Vegetarian (G/F 71 Chatham Road, South Oriental Centre) along Chatham Road South just round the corner from Cameron Road. This was reported to be a popular restaurant, but I did not eat there. I did buy some dim sum from their takeout counter. The dim sum were going for HK$10 for 3 pieces, which weren't too expensive. The only problem is that they were cold and the steamed dim sum just do not taste good when cold. I suggest you go for the deep fried or baked dim sum instead. The takeout counter also sold lunch boxes for HK$25, and they had set lunch for 2 at HK$125.

After having problem finding food the first day, I got onto the net and search HappyCow.net again. To my delight I found a vegetarian noodle joint nearby and I ate there almost everyday for the rest of my trip.

The restaurant is called Lan Lan Vegetarian Restaurant. (靓靓) It is modelled after the traditional push cart noodle (车仔面).

It's a small restaurant, with limited seats. There is a piece of paper on each table. On the piece of paper, you choose the noodle you want (there are more than 10 type of noodles available), and the ingredients you want (e.g. mushrooms, broccoli, leafy vegetables, etc), and finally the soup base. Unfortunately, it's all in Chinese. There is no English menu. In the worst case, you can ask for the recommended noodle set in the picture on the wall.

The noodles are between HK$11 to HK$13 (depending on the type of noodles), and the ingredients are HK$6 per order. But what I found is that if they normally give half an order if you select more than 3, so it did not added up to be too expensive. With a selection of 6 ingredients, my bowl of noodles came up to $35 only. That's the most value for money and economical meal I found in Hong Kong.
With lots of vegetables, the soup noodles were an healthy and hearty, and nice in the cold winter weather.

Besides noodles, they also have rice, stir fry vegetable dishes, and other snacks.

I tried their fried tofu, pan-fried dumplings (水煎饺 HK$18)as well as the vegetarian version of Hong Kong's street food -- fried stuffed trios (煎酿三宝 HK$25) which is "fish meat" stuffed in egg plant, chili and tofu skin and deep fried (see picture).

The address of the restaurant is Ground A, 15 Austin Avenue, Tsim Sha Tsui. But it is actually along Kimberly Road (I think it is part of a building which faces Austin Ave). It is easier to find it by walking along Kimberly Road northwards toward Austin Ave. However, you may miss the sign for it because it is covered by the signboard of another restaurant. It is directly opposite a 7-11, if that helps.


Another restaurant I found was at the Lady's Market. There were many street food stalls, but I could not find anything vegetarian. I found that there were 2 vegetarian restaurants along Tung Choi street. But it is not easy to find them because the makeshift stalls blocked the view. Walk behind the street stalls. At the end of Tung Choi street near Dundas street, there is a Vegetarian Kitchen. This is a Japanese restaurant. You can get sushi, sashimi and ramen. I ordered a bowl of rice with a meat pattie in it (HK$38) and an order of vegetable tempura. The food was pretty good. The final bill came up to HK$78 because there were some additional charges. It's a little pricey, but I guess in Hong Kong, that's about what I have to expect to pay for a meal.

The best meal I had was actually in the Po Lin temple in Lantau.
I paid HK$60 for the meal ticket, which included entrance to an exhibition hall inside the giant Buddha.

At first, I expected to be grouped with some strangers for the meal which is the common practice in temples. I was surprised to be lead to a small table instead and was served individually. First, I was given a big pot of rice, a big bowl of miso soup and a pot of hot Chinese tea. Then I was served 3 dishes. The dishes were very tasty. It's actually a little too much for one person, but I finished them all nonetheless. A friend warned me that the food at the temple was bad -- just a some badly cooked vegetables, he said. But I think it's probably because he didn't like vegetables. I thought the food was excellent. I saw that other tables with more people had 4 to 5 dishes. But I was happy with my 3 dishes.

I had problem finding breakfast in Hong Kong. I saw many noodles joints but none vegetarian. Of course, there is always bread available from 7-11, but I am really not a bread person. I walked into one of those Hong Kong tea restaurant (茶餐厅). The only vegetarian option I could find was plain steam rice rolls (斋肠粉) and toast, which I ordered.

Then I found the Singapore chain Toast Box and the next two morning I ended up having my breakfast there. (HK$28 for a set meal, with kaya toast, two fried egg, and a coffee).


There is, however, one thing I like about Hong Kong. Desert stalls are quite common. Sesame paste, peanut paste, mango pudding with pomelo (杨枝甘露), dumpling balls ("ah bo ling" 汤圆) etc. When I could not find food, these were good snacks to fill the stomach.