Both balmy, food-obsessed, and distinctly international within the region, the link between Hong Kong to Singapore is one of strong familiarity.
The two cities’ populations share a passion for food – especially enjoyed in large groups and in casual settings – unrivaled by European or North American counterparts. Singapore-born Hong Kong restaurateur Wei Kwan Chan, founder of ATAS – A Taste of Shiok, knows this best.
As co-founder of the Causeway Bay-based Singaporean restaurant, Wei Kwan opened to entice Hong Kong diners familiar with Southeast Asian flavours, but to provide a more concrete authenticity to Singaporean food in the city.
“A lot of Hong Kongers link Singaporean, Malaysian, and Thai food together because these cuisines are spicy, strong, and Southeast Asian. Singaporean cuisine, of course, is familiar to the Chinese palate, because Singapore is majority Chinese,” Wei Kwan tells Foodie.
Beyond the usual Singaporean trappings found in the city, be that chicken rice, bak kut teh, Hokkien mee, and laksa, Wei Kwan’s introduces more unique flavours not commonly found in Hong Kong on the menu at ATAS.
“For lunch, we serve a hawker food centre style of menu,” which includes more rare dishes such as satay bee hoon peanut sauce noodles, bak chor mee minced pork noodles, chilli crab cream sauce parpadelle, and ngoh hiang sausage roll.
The dinner service at ATAS takes on a Singaporean zi char feel, a mode of cooking home-style Chinese dishes similar to the communal dining spaces of Hong Kong dai pai dongs.
“It is quite hard to find authentic Singaporean food in Hong Kong, but we try to deliver that with dishes you cannot find much here,” such as Singapore black pepper crab, sweet sambal chicken cartilage, and salted egg soft shell prawns.
“All of our sauces and dishes are made by ourselves, we do not get any products from suppliers. The way I make sure the food tastes really good is that it needs to remind me of home.”
By serving more rare dishes on the menu, without importing products to directly emulate the flavours of Singapore, Wei Kwan believes ATAS is “as authentic as possible.”
To him, success over four years in operation has come in sharing the real fiery, salty, and spicy flavours of Singapore in a format suitable for the Hong Kong diner, be that in a lunch portion or multi-plate shared dinner.
Typically in Hong Kong it is more common in Hong Kong to have restaurants joining both Singaporean and Malaysian cuisine together on a menu, owing to the similarities between the two countries.
Across Hong Kong Island at the foot of the University of Hong Kong, Café Malacca, a 13-year-old restaurant inside JEN Hong Kong by Shangri-La, dishes out more than 40 recipes from the Malaccan Strait.
A gathering space for Singaporean and Malaysians residing in Hong Kong, Café Malacca’s menu highlights recipes from Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, and Penang, which in turn, contextualizes Singaporean food as a meeting point for both Malaysian and Chinese flavours.
In 2012, the hotel management transformed their Western restaurant Café 208 into the current Malaysian-Singaporean concept today. It was one of Hong Kong’s first restaurants to serve a cross section of the Strait, according to the culinary director.
“Under management’s direction, we have to be authentic at Café Malacca, with no changes or tweaks to the recipes,” she shares.
Singaporean char koay teow noodles, laksa, and fish soup bee hoon meet on the same table with Penang and Malaysian char koay teow, assam laksa, and sar hor fun, presenting similar tastes with slight variations to the recipes.
For example, the Singaporean char koay teow is darker, wetter, and sweeter compared to the Penang spicier, drier, and more wok hei version.
“We are the only restaurant that displays the difference in dishes, for example, between Singaporean laksa, Penang laksa, and Johor Bahru laksa. Singaporean and Malaysian food is more or less the same.”
Ingredients like black soy sauce, magi sauce, belacan sauce, bean sprouts, prawn pasta, sambal, durian, and soursop are imported from Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, and Penang, just like ATAS, bringing a homely touch to Café Malacca enjoyed by homesick Singaporean and Malaysians, and other diners interested in the real deal of the Malaccan cuisine.
The Café Malacca team run strict quality control to maintain the same Singaporean and Malaysian zest. Singaporean is best enjoyed and served in respect to how the neighbours cook the same dishes, the culinary director finds.
The Singaporean fan-fest runs deep in the Sai Wan area, where the nearby university student population resides. One MTR station to the west in Kennedy Town, the 35-year chef veteran Edward Voon brings a Singaporean essence to his new Southeast Asian restaurant VOON.
Opening in July, VOON is not about Singapore food, nor is it a Singaporean restaurant. Here, Singapore’s cuisine is applied as a foundation for the chef to express his journey, Edward claims.
“I use [Singaporean] cuisine as an essence, inspiration, and a discipline,” Edward tells Foodie.
Similarly to Café Malacca, Singaporean cuisine shines on a menu with Malaysian flavours. Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, and Cantonese flavours are also dabbled within VOON’s Southeast Asian approach.
“As a Malaysian chef born in Penang but raised in Singapore, I know the deep soul connection the cuisine has with Singapore and the rest of Southeast Asia.” For one, the menu at VOON dabbles in touches from the whole region but focuses on the recipes made famous in the homes stretching from Penang to Singapore.
The VOON lobster laksa stir-fried linguine is a dish that Edward wanted to “honour his own way [by] giving people a certain Singapore feeling,” but with a taste of his flair. The lobster brings a more rich hit to the seafood broth, inspired by his tenure in fine-dining to elevate a trademark of Singapore cooking.
For appetisers, Edward serves the black pepper mud crab macaroni, a Singaporean twist on a French classic, infusing the umami-rich crab texture and flavours within.
The pandan crème brûlée and soufflé cheesecake on the dessert menu brings a Singaporean familiarity, balancing a meal that involves Thai sauces, Chinese spice, or Cantonese techniques.
“VOON is not just about taste, it’s about the whole feelings of Singapore. The menu touches on a sense of belonging [in Singapore] because the city is so multicultural.”
Whether seen primarily as the main focus for a restaurant, compared with its neighbouring palate, or used as a springboard to tell a story of cultural mixing, Singaporean cuisine is having a moment in Hong Kong.
