A Love Letter To: The Chaotic Comfort of Hong Kong Tea Cafe

When my heart wants breakfast at 2pm, my body takes me to Hong Kong Tea Cafe.

It’s not just a cafe. It’s a cha chaan teng – a specifically Hong Kong institution.

It’s where I can blink my eyes open over a warm cup of milk tea and not be judged for my bed hair or my creased shirt, or for ordering a deep-fried chicken drumstick, fried rice and a soup for breakfast. The uncles and aunties are too busy gossiping in Cantonese to register my barely awake (barely human) state.

Breakfast at a cha chaan teng is a serious affair. Banish all thought of the typical brunch roulette of eggs, avocado and sourdough bread. No thank you. This is some serious breakfast. They always say it’s the most important meal of the day, but at a cha chaan teng you can get all the energy you need for the day in one bowl. Double carbs to start the day? Yes please.

I’m talking hearty macaroni soup and fried eggs. Chasing bites of thumb-sized swirls of macaroni with tender slices of beef and slurps of reddish-orange tomato soup. I dredge up the bottom of the bowl with a thick slice of toast and finish my meal with an omelette studded with thin slices of ham.

For many morning-afters, it’s soothed me with its Hong Kong-style congee, filled with familiar comforts like beef, pork and century egg. When I’m so fragile that the lines between breakfast and lunch blur, it picks me up with its array of baked fried rice served under a blanket of creamy tomato or cream sauce, topped with cheese.

This is the unique comfort of a cha chaan teng.

A cross between a diner and cafe that’s ready to embrace you at any time, day or night.

To understand its comforts, you have to look back to its roots in Hong Kong. Cha chaan tengs were influenced by the British occupation of Hong Kong, emerging as a convenient place to eat Western food with a Cantonese influence. It made Western food accessible to those outside of the privileged elite, by taking the hallmarks of European dishes and blending them with Hong Kong’s trademark efficiency. You’d find tea with baked buns, eggs with spam, spaghetti with a fried cutlet. There’s also often a borscht.

But it’s not all about breakfast. Dinner comes sizzling (quite literally) on a hotplate for one. A crumbed pork chop lying on top of a bed of spaghetti with curry on the side. Sirloin steak with fried rice. Perhaps a side of chips too? Don’t mind if I do.

So if you’re allergic to mornings like I am – or don’t want to be constrained by the cruel phrase “breakfast ends at 11am” – come and embrace the chaotic comfort of Hong Kong Tea Cafe.

Hong Kong Tea Cafe
4/800 Albany Highway, East Victoria Park
(08) 9361 6653

Hours:
Tues to Sun 11am–3pm, 5pm–9pm

www.hongkongteacafe.com.au
@hongkongteacafe