Local winter foods Hongkongers can't live without

Gathering over a pot around the table is a quintessential custom that locals do whenever there are celebrations or catch-ups with friends and relatives. From herbal hotpots to seafood feasts, the city has all kinds of hotpot restaurants for you to dip and dunk your way through the winter. Best of all, you don't always have to go out to enjoy it! Tons of hotpot restaurants also offer delivery or takeaway hotpot sets where all your meats and veg are washed and prepped for you beforehand. Better yet, do it your own way and simply purchase all your favourite ingredients at local wet markets or supermarkets!

Hot Vitasoy soya milk is a ubiquitous remedy that helps ward off colds. Both flavours – original and malted – can usually be found in food warmers at 7-Eleven or Circle-K. Some places such as cha chaan tengs also have them in glass bottles so you can keep your hands warm as you sip on the soul-warming beverage.

Rather than going for a tipple, how about enjoying a warming slurp of classic hot sweet soups? Usually made with a wide range of healthy ingredients such as almond, milk, ginger, sesame, beans and nuts, these traditionally curated delights not only taste delicious but also have health and beauty benefits that can nourish our bodies from within. Signatures include the almond tea with egg white, sang ji sheng (mulberry mistletoe) tea with lotus seed and egg, papaya and snow fungus soup, as well as soft and chewy glutinous rice dumplings (aka tong yuen) served with sweet ginger broth. 

With a gluey and mushy texture, congee is a Cantonese rice porridge usually served plain or cooked with meat and dried seafood to give it a subtle umami flavour. As the congee is simmered with a large amount of water, it’s easy to digest and can help to hydrate, making it a favourite for older people and those in need of edible TLC when suffering from a cold. Many locals also like adding a few strips of fried dough sticks (aka yau ja gwai) in congee, as these crispy crullers soaked in silky-smooth congee taste amazingly – they're like doughnuts, but savoury!

Though it may sound a tad creepy to some, snake soup is widely celebrated as a winter warmer that brings various medicinal benefits like promoting blood circulation, replenishing energy, enhancing skin quality and improving men’s sex drive. Shredded into thin slivers, the snake flesh is boiled with chicken, pork bones, mushrooms and a range of Chinese herbs and spices. The texture of snake meat resembles the roughness of chicken meat, while the whole broth tastes slightly sweet and mildly spicy. Although there are fewer and fewer snake soup restaurants in Hong Kong nowadays, we can still sip a bowl containing the cooked reptile at Ser Wong Fun.

Usually known as a warming dish popular in Nordic countries, lamb meat is also considered a ‘heating’ food that helps improve blood circulation and reduce cold symptoms in Chinese culinary theory. Though winter in Hong Kong is relatively mild compared with other parts of the world, many Hong Kong people still crave a large pot of locally curated lamb stew to warm their rumbling tummies. Slow-cooked with bean curd sheets, mushrooms and lettuce, the lamb stew goes perfect with white rice.

Roasted sweet potatoes and chestnuts are roadside rarities these days. Sold from mobile street carts, the distinct aroma of these charcoal-cooked delicacies have always been synonymous with winter in the city. Since there are only a few street vendors left in Hong Kong that still peddle these delicious treats, be sure to grab a bag when you see it.

Served in a vintage claypot bowl, claypot rice is one of the most famous local delicacies that Hong Kong people love to tuck into on a cold winter’s day. With a balanced ratio of water and oil, an authentic clayot rice dish will have a layer of crispy rice crust burnt by the blazing hot fire at the bottom, while the rice in the middle remains fluffy and is topped with a bunch of sizzling ingredients – ranging from traditional preserved meats to western-fusion combos like mushrooms and foie gras, and beef and garlic. And don't forget to drizzle some dark soy sauce on top too!

In Chinese traditions, spring and summer is a period of growth and prosperity, while fall and winter is high time to rest and restore energy. That's why many traditional winter dishes and dietary tonics in Hong Kong are often incorporated with Chinese medicine or ingredients with high nutritious values, such as ginseng, donkey-hide gelatin, pilose antler (a traditional herb sourced from male deer) and cordyceps (a genus of parasitic fungi). 

Literally translating to ‘basin dish’, this dish has everything but the kitchen sink in it. Typically served in a large metal bowl or pot and shared communally, poon choi is packed full of ingredients like shiitake mushrooms, goose feet, scallops, pork belly, abalone, chicken, sea cucumber, fat choy, and cabbage, but different regions have their own additional ingredients they add into the dish. 

Available all year round, sticky rice is a rich and hearty dish that’ll warm both your heart and belly, making it a perfect dish to have on a blisteringly cold day. This rice dish is made with glutinous and jasmine rice, cured Chinese sausages and pork belly, as well as several dried aromatic ingredients like mushrooms and shrimp. Once the rice is steamed and all the other ingredients are cooked, they’re all sauteed together in a frying pan and seasoned with both light and dark soy sauce. The rich and flavourful ingredients are like little nuggets of umami-filled goodness, providing a contrast in texture against the chewy rice grains.