Where to eat some winter warmers amid Hong Kong’s cold snap

When temperatures plunge, Hongkongers’ thoughts turn to foods traditionally thought of as warming - hotpot, double-boiled soups, claypot rice and snake soup. Here are some places to get some

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The tomato and crab hotpot broth at Old Man Hot Pot in Hung Hom is by far the best we’ve tasted. Photos: K.Y. Cheng, Bernice Chan, Paul Yeung, Jonathan Wong, Nora Tam

Published: 6:45pm, 3 Feb 2016Updated: 6:42pm, 3 Feb 2016

When the weather in Hong Kong is this cold, we need some seriously warming food. There are four traditional options: snake soup (not for everyone, we know), hotpot, double-boiled soup, and claypot rice.

Some hotpot lovers will tell you the best hotpot is the one you prepare yourself. However, unless you are good friends with stall owners who reserve the best cuts of meat or you are expert at making your own soup base, you’re best off eating out.

Hotpot at Megan's Kitchen featuring multi-coloured meat and fish balls.

The creative combination of ingredients at Megan’s Kitchen (5/F Lucky Centre, 165-171 Wan Chai Road, Wan Chai; tel: 2866 8305) always surprise. One of our favourites is a deep-fried pastry stuffed with shrimp paste. The salty ox-tongue cheese dumpling is another highlight.

At Golden Valley (1/F The Emperor Hotel, 1 Wang Tak Street, Happy Valley; tel: 2961 3330) the Sichuan spicy soup is so good, we barely touch the others. A condiment bar is equipped with a mortar and pestle for you to crush your seasonings and there are instructions on how to make a Sichuan-style sauce.

Ingredients for hotpot at Old Man Hot Pot in Hung Hom.

While freshness of ingredients is very important in a hotpot, it’s a mistake to take the soup for granted. The tomato crab soup from Old Man Hot Pot (25-31 Cooke Street, Hung Hom; tel: 9089 7732) is outstanding and easily the best.

Double-boiled soups are a traditional Chinese way to keep the chills at bay. The soup and its ingredients are placed in either a tureen or ceramic jar, sealed and then put in a steamer and slow-cooked for three to four hours. The end result is an intensely flavoured, usually clear broth that has absorbed all the nutrients from ingredients that are chosen for their benefits to the body.

At fine-dining Cantonese restaurant One Harbour Road (7/F-8/F Grand Hyatt Hong Kong, 1 Harbour Road, Wan Chai, tel: 2584 7722), double-boiled chicken soup with matsutake mushrooms has clean, complex flavours that we found very delicate. There’s a more medicinal aftertaste in the double-boiled frog soup with fresh ginseng and American ginseng.