Hong Kong: A (Food) Melting Pot

Hong Kong is has a lot of different cultures that makes it so unique. Even though it is in Asia, there are people living here from all over the world that bring their own culture and influence over. Just like New York, I feel that Hong Kong is a melting pot for all cultures and ethnicities. When you come to Hong Kong, of course you are going to eat every food you can find that is part of the Cantonese and Chinese cuisine. However, Hong Kong has a lot of restaurants to eat at that serve other cultural foods also. You can find Taiwanese, Thai, Indian, Korean, Japanese, Latin, and even American food all over Hong Kong. So if you’re not feeling Chinese food anymore there are a ton of different options. So far, I have had almost every type of food Hong Kong has to offer and they have all been great.

Since I have had other cuisines in America before, I thought I should try them over here in Hong Kong to see if they tasted any different. In my opinion, the Korean BBQ here in Hong Kong was extremely better than BonChon, which I love going to. The sushi was obviously more fresh in Japan, but it is also very good here in Hong Kong. I have never had Thai or Taiwanese food before, so trying it for the first time was great. I know that when I go to Thailand with my family, the food will be an adventure in its own for me. In each restaurant that I have been to, I sensed the different cultural atmospheres in all of the restaurants that I have been too. Even though I didn’t go to an Indian restaurant here in Hong Kong, my exchange buddy, Ansh, would made me dinner one night and the food was amazing. I got to have a taste of everything while I was here and I loved it.

My favorite restaurant is Picada, which is an Latin American inspired restaurant in Central. I first came to find out about it through Ada because she told us that they had oysters: 1 for $10HKD. We thought it was a great deal so we knew that we had to go. When we went it was also salsa night, so they had salsa lessons for the dinner guests and then after the lessons, you could dance the night away. The first time we went they ran out of oysters because we arrived late and the people who got there early had rounds and rounds of oysters. The waitress felt bad for us, so she gave us an appetizer on the house, which was really nice of her to do and muy deliciosa (very delicious)! She told us to come back another time, but to make sure than it was early so that we could get the oysters. We ended the night with dessert, which were to die for. The churros were very soft and basically melted in your mouth! We knew that we had to come back another time for dessert and the oysters.

When our families came this past week to visit, we all went back to Picada and to eat dinner. We finally got the oysters and they were great. The salsa that they put on them gave them a sweet flavor and adding the lemon juice to it gave a nice sour finish. Since my sister can’t eat seafood, she got the empanadas and she really enjoyed them. Just like America, you can find all different types of food and my sister and mom really liked that because it reminded them of back home, even though we’re on the other side of the world. I really enjoyed begin able to take a break from Chinese food a couple of times to try something new because I knew it would be better than back home.

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