Culture Shock While Eating Hong Kong Street Food... BUT IT'S PERFECT! Sharing food with strangers?

Oh my god, that is beautiful. We just landed in Hong Kong and it's time to get serious about finding some good food. Today we're in Kowloon checking out Hing Kee Restaurant, a locally loved street food vendor in the heart of Temple Street, an area that is still defined by an older Hong Kong. Here you can find Temple Street Night Market, Tin Hau Temple, Yamate Fruit Market, but when wandering around the wafting smell of scorched rice and charcoal mixes with the holy incense wafting in the neighborhood, coaxing your belly to scream for some local grub. Hing Kee has had this neighborhood covered since the 1980s, famous for their clay pot rice still cooked over charcoal. The original restaurant has since expanded onto almost the entire city block. Grab an empty table, get some grub, and an ice cold beer. It's time to experience some real Hong Kong street food. So according to their menu, the best dish today was fish maw and chicken clay pot rice. Turns out fish maw is the dried gas bladder of a fish. Not one to shy from new experiences, we put it in order ASAP. We also had to try their famous oyster pancakes and some sweet and sour pork for good measure. What time is it? All right, I think it's good. 2 p.m is a good time to start drinking. I'm slowly falling in love with the city, but there's just a lot more we have to experience. Oh, this is our sweet and sour pork. It looks so good. Oh, thank you. It's a small sign. Dude, that looks amazing. This is definitely beer food, I would say. Boom. Wow. This tastes just like American Chinese food. Better. Oh my god. Dude, the peppers are so fake fragrant. Try one of the peppers. What in the hell? I've never had a paprika pepper that like fragrant. This is ******* good. All right, I'm gonna try the oyster pancake, which is a, this is the small size by the way. It's huge. Oh my god, this looks so good. Oh yeah. Those are definitely like baby oysters. It's so good. Very fresh. Doesn't taste briny at all. Yeah, I'm gonna need another beer. I'm a huge fan of this. It's so soft and pillowy. Oh my god. Sometimes I get skeptical of these places that are so famous that like every foodie has been here. Mark Wiens has been here. Baek Jong-won has been here. Anthony Wardain has been here. Once they get famous, do they lose some of their, once they start opening six different restaurants, do they lose touch? I don't know. This is good to me though. I like it. Wow. Oh my god. That is beautiful. I don't know how to eat claypot rice. Do we mix it all up? Or do you just like... I know you're supposed to put soy sauce on it. This must be the fish maw. The rice is interesting too. This isn't like the Korean Japanese rice. It's long grain rice. This is gonna sound really weird. The flavor of this rice cooked in a claypot reminds me of tobacco. The best flavor, the good flavor of tobacco. This must be the fish maw. Fish maw, baby. Tastes like dogani or tendon. Can I get one more beer? Yeah, it's really good, right? The best thing I think is that the rice is al dente. Did you get some of the nurungji? Oh, there's scorched rice on the bottom. That's the best part of it. I was skeptical because this restaurant was so famous, but the food won me over. Fucking good food. That's what it is. With our bellies full, it was time to take a walk. We headed south towards the harbor to experience the sunset and famous Hong Kong skyline. But it wasn't too long until we got hungry for some more. Enter Mak Man Ki Noodle Shop, in operation since 1957. These handmade noodles used the same recipe since they opened as a street vendor and received a Michelin star in 2017. Now tonight, I want some bold flavors. I see they have pork knuckle and fermented bean curd noodles. Not one to shy away from anything fermented sounded good to me. While Courtney sprung for their traditional shrimp wonton soup noodles. One thing we're getting used to in Hong Kong is getting shoved into a table with strangers. We actually met a couple of Korean people who were traveling the world. And if you don't know, Courtney and I live in Korea. So where is your next destination after Hong Kong? We're going to Japan. Japan, okay. Next we're going to Korea. Okay, so Hong Kong, Japan, Korea. 10 years. Too long. So long. Not too long. Not too long. It's crazy to me. 10 years. But I really like my job. It's a good job. KAIST is a great place. Traditional, old. Yeah, like this kind of place. That looks beautiful. Yeah, that's what I thought. Yeah, I love jokbal. What did they call this? Chinese broccoli? Ah, it's like the big broccoli stem. It's very, very good. Oh, yeah. But it's like, um, only local, local people. My favorite is, uh, Come to Daejeon, please message me on Instagram. We'll eat together. Yeah, I would love that. We'll have soju. All right, I'm gonna try. Amazing. Mmm. Very similar, but too salty, in my opinion. This is much, much saltier. Please. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I wouldn't know. I'm not crazy, okay? Like, I'm not Korean, so you have to try. In my opinion, it's a little too, like, Korean jokbal is not as, it's more like, uh, Yeah, but it's good, it's good. Come here for the noodles. Mmm. So guys, I got the, the bean curd noodles. It tastes like It's a fermented tofu, fermented bean, bean curd, bean curd. Yeah, so it has like a brie cheese, kind of like. You can try some, right? Yeah, definitely. I love it. This is definitely, like, a Hongol taste. I like it a lot. Wow. Your name is Gibbons? Austin. My last name is Gibbons, yeah. Last name is Gibbons. That's why eating what is Gibbons, yeah. It was her idea. She's smart. Really good idea. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like brie cheese, like, or like Hongol. It's got, like, a fermented taste. I really ******* love those noodles. It's amazing. Wow. Yes, yeah, it's so nice to meet you. If you come to Daejeon, call me, okay? Okay. Yeah, we'll get guangxi jokbal. Enjoy your travels. Wow. Oh my god, you really get that Hongol taste. It comes through there. So delicious. I don't want these noodles to end. This is crazy. I just realized, like, this fermented bean curd is something that I'm going to obsess over. I'm surprised you like it. It is very intense. Like, the fermentation is totally there. It's definitely, like, a Hongol taste. What? Oh, definitely. This is amazing. Yeah, definitely cheesy, but then when you get the full mouthful, it comes up through your nose. This is so good. I love the texture of the noodles. And with that, day one was complete. Eating local in Hong Kong is complete culture shock. It's chaotic, it's messy, you sit with strangers, but the food is damn good and the people are kind. I'm already, I'm loving the food and the experience in this culinary juggernaut called Hong Kong.