Hong Kong tour guide Virginia Chan is on a mission to expose restaurants you have never heard of and show face to the other sides of the city.
“I want to be the bridge between the East and the West,” Virginia Chan says of her work as a local tour guide in Hong Kong. Online and offline, the Vancouver-raised Hong Konger is passionate about championing the if-you-know-you-know side of the restaurant scene, restaurants, eateries, and cafes unfamiliar to every Hong Konger.
On private tours guiding around tourists and locals to top neighborhood spots, and on her popular Instagram page, Virginia wants to show face to the side of Hong Kong dining categorised as secretive, intimate, and very much neighborhoodly.
“I am passionate about bringing that Lion Rock spirit and 人情味 (jan4 cing4 mei6/human connection) to my customers and viewers.”

Virginia’s tour troupe Humid with a Chance of Fishballs has operated since 2016, crafting private and group tours in food-heavy neighborhoods such as Sham Shui Po, Kowloon City, Causeway Bay’s harbour front, and Whampoa.
“Some of the friendliest people in Hong Kong are those operating restaurants,” she claims. Virginia finds Hong Kong’s central love language is food, the key to understanding the city. “In order for them to express that they like you, Chinese people feed you food.”
Her Whampoa off-the-eaten-path group tour comprises a list of local hot spots to explore Cantonese cuisine’s five main flavours of bitter, salty, spicy, sour and sweet. In Kowloon City, Virginia’s night tour exposes the area’s top Hong Kong, Thai, and Chiu Chow restaurants. Those more adventurous can join her sampan dinners in Causeway Bay.

Born on the west coast of Canada and emigrating to Hong Kong a decade ago, Virginia finds herself in a “good mix” of cultures as “neither a curse nor a blessing. I grew up in Vancouver liking certain textures and flavour profiles that maybe the Western world doesn’t understand.”
“I can find local gems [in Hong Kong] that I think would be catered to the tastes of my customers with their taste. They might not like goose testines, but cart noodles could be good. I have known to embrace my CBC-ness (Canadian Born Chinese)!”
When it comes to Instagram, her main avenue of marketing her Hong Kong dining tours, Virginia goes where many have not. Her Reels have exposed a Xinjiang restaurant in Tai Hang, open-fire Cantonese BBQ spot in North Point, a bull genitals-specialist hot pot restaurant in Jordan, and halal dim sum venue in Wan Chai, to name a few.

“I am not the one that actually picks the venue when I go out with friends. My more local friends will know all the hot spots and cool places to eat. The best people to ask are always the people that either work or live in that area. They know all the spots that Google doesn’t even know of.”
“The main objective of what I want to do here is for people. We want you to know more about the places that maybe you can’t find yourself or you can’t find anything on the internet. We want to support the local community and small businesses, which is why we often showcase mom and pop shops that aren’t franchises or have big investors behind them.”
“It is really hard for many to explore and waste calories and money on places that turn out to be really bad. I go out and spend the time eating so you don’t have any wasted time, calories, or money!”

For Virginia, her culinary explorations are intended to explore more of Hong Kong’s cultural traditions and heritage. Intertwined in the restaurants she promotes on her tours and Instagram are vital stories about Hong Kong’s history and way of life.
In 2025, her next avenue of her Hong Kong storytelling will come to YouTube to share longer-form content covering the minutiae of dining in Hong Kong; not just Cantonese food, but the many cuisines that make up Hong Kong.
Book a tour with Humid with a Chance of Fishballs Tours today or check out her Instagram page exploring restaurants you have never heard of in Hong Kong.