Lamenting slow death of egg tarts

Egg tarts and strong tea mixed with condensed milk have long been a favorite elixir of many Hong Kong people to ease the pressure and stress of a fast-pace lifestyle. But together with the won-ton (pork dumpling) noodle soup and red bean puddings, these delicacies are disappearing from our culinary landscape.

The local press has reported that the beloved egg tart, a favorite of people of all ages, is going the way of the dodo. I have not come across a street vendor selling sweet rice cakes, my childhood favorite, for years. The last time I had won-ton noodle soup was in the coffee shop of a five-star hotel. Understandably, it was nothing like what I had at a street-side cooked food stall, or better known in the local dialect as a dai pai dong.

Indeed, both the dai pai dongs and the cha chaan tings, or Hong Kong-style dinners, have fallen on hard times. Rising property prices and rents in Hong Kong have relentlessly pushed these low-profit-margin eateries, catering mainly to the low-income segments of the population, to extinction. The final blow was the city-wide ban on indoor smoking, which took effect at the beginning of the year.