GOURMET DELIGHTS AWAIT EARLY MAY VISITORS TO THE “CITY OF LIFE”

Fine food is never too far away when you’re in Hong Kong, which has justly earned its reputation as one of the world’s great gourmet capitals – but May is always an extra special month for gastronomes as the “City of Life” holds its annual Hong Kong Gourmet Delights celebration.

Organised by the Hong Kong Tourism Board, this year’s Gourmet Delights festival runs from 1 to 14 May and will be a feature event in the new City of Life: Hong Kong is it! programme, designed to showcase the huge variety of different attractions on offer in every district of Hong Kong.

Indeed, Hong Kong Gourmet Delights is a veritable banquet of different activities in itself, featuring special theme feasts, district food festivals, gourmet tours and culinary workshops hosted by some of Hong Kong’s best known chefs.

At the top of the menu this year is a series of seven “Dining Classics” – special banquets on different themes, each offered by a specific restaurant throughout the two-week promotion. Diners looking for something unusual may well choose the Aromatic Tea Feast, each course of which is prepared using a different type of tea leaves. Tea has been an integral part of Chinese cooking since the Sung Dynasty (960 - 1279 AD) and this is an excellent way to appreciate its versatility.

Seafood lovers can take the opportunity to explore Hong Kong’s unspoilt outlying islands at the same time by enjoying the Fishermen’s Feast, an authentic taste of what you might find on a local fisherman’s family dining table. Vegetarians and the health conscious, on the other hand, may prefer to stay in the city for the White Jade Feast, of which every course is based on tofu (bean curd). Another form of eating for health – Chinese tonic foods – can be sampled at the Healthy Tonic Feast, cooked with delicious and natural medicinal ingredients.

A one-stop gourmet tour of regional Chinese cooking is offered by the Provincial Feast, while those who would like to recapture the style and atmosphere of the lavish banquets held for Imperial Chinese mandarins can enjoy the Dynasty Feast, which uses the recipes of a retired palace chef. And for those who want to splash out on the very finest Chinese delicacies such as shark’s fin, abalone and bird’s nest, there is the appropriately named Noble Feast.

All seven “Dining Classic” menus are on offer every evening from 1 to 14 May at the participating restaurants, and either two-person or 10-person menus are available.

An alternative way of enjoying the Hong Kong Gourmet Delights programme is by heading for one of the six District Food Festivals, where diners can create their own gourmet menus while enjoying the value-for-money prices in some of Hong Kong’s most popular dining districts.

This year’s participating districts include Lei Yue Mun, famous for its fresh seafood; SoHo (South of Hollywood Road) which is a cosmopolitan mix of chic, mostly Western restaurants; and Stanley, which offers a chance to get away from the city bustle and enjoy laid-back eating places in a seaside setting.

Other district festival venues are the newly-opened Whampoa Gourmet Place in Hung Hom, home to 12 eating places under one roof showcasing authentic local dishes; the Food Forum at Times Square, Causeway Bay, featuring local, Asian and international delicacies; and Canton Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, which offers a diverse selection of food and beverage outlets.

For visitors to Hong Kong who would like to learn more about Chinese gourmet dishes and how they are cooked, there are several special events featuring well-known local culinary experts. The ultimate personal touch is a lunch prepared and served by celebrity gourmet Dr Maria Lee in her own home, preceded by a guided tour of the local food market.

At Whampoa Gourmet Place, consultant gourmet Chua Lam will host a feast of local fare for overseas visitors, featuring the signature dish from each of the centre’s 12 outlets.

For those who like to learn Chinese cooking skills themselves, the “Cooking with Great Chefs” classes, one of last year’s most popular programmes, will again be held on various dates at the Towngas Cooking Centre, Causeway Bay. Meanwhile a new programme this year called “Gourmet Academy” offers hands-on practice of Northern Chinese speciality cooking, under the guidance of culinary guru Cecilia Jennie Au Yang at the Chopsticks Cooking Centre. All classes are conducted in Cantonese with English translation.

Finally, visitors who have over-indulged in gourmet eating may like to take the opportunity of starting the next morning with some healthy exercise. The “Morning Tea and Tai Chi Tour” will let you limber up the way the locals do, and work up an appetite for the next delight to sample, a light but delicious dim sum lunch.



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The Hong Kong Tourism Board was formerly known as the Hong Kong Tourist Association (HKTA). The change took effect from 1 April 2001 and reflects a change to the tourism body’s constitutional structure. Its primary responsibilities for marketing and promoting Hong Kong as a destination worldwide, and for providing visitors with assistance when they arrive, remain unchanged