The Corner of Tung Wan Rd. and Church Road

(Don't forget to check out the destination guide addendum to this post, which takes you beyond the food to some other facets of Cheung Chau you can check out!)

On weekends, the corner of Tung Wan Street and Church Road is a bustling place on Cheung Chau island, and for good reason, there are a handful of great mom and pop shops selling some pretty interesting snacks and desserts here, not to mention the East Lake Restaurant is right there, and so is the main beach of the island.

Recently opened near the corner of Tung Wan and Church is this small shop that sells just one thing only - home-made deep-fried-before-your-eyes potato chips.

But the kicker for these self-proclaimed "Crazy Jack Potato Giant Chips" is the fact that they're not technically "chips" after all. You can peak at them doing some sort of handy-work on each individual potato with a knife, and then another employee pokes a stick from one end of the potato through to the other in a fancy feat spiraling the potato onto the stick. Once fried, you're free to pepper on any condiment your heart so desires, from salt to curry and everything in between! At this time these works of aesthetically pleasing Crazy Jack Potato Chips are pretty expensive (13 HK), considering it's just a potato after all.


If you're not into aesthetic novelties, then check out the mom and pop shop right next door - 新照記小食店 (san jiu gei siu sihk dihm) - which has got all the characteristically Hong Kong snacks and sweets.


This is a grass jelly with sago dessert (涼粉椰汁西米露 leuhng fan ye jap sai mai louh). Really delicious. I'm quite a fan of grass jelly, with its soothing texture and its chilling taste - its Chinese translates literally as chilled powder. And how could you go wrong pouring coconut juice onto any dessert? Truly fantastic, especially for a hot day, which is perfect considering that the beach is just a minute walk away! The mochis are really tasty too, with a variety of flavors including egg-milk (奶黃 laaih wohng), sesame (芝麻 ji mah） and peanut-sesame (花生芝麻 fa sang ji mah).

And then around the corner next to this shop on Church Road is yet another mom and pop shop selling Japanese style snacks. It doesn't seem to have a name other than what it sells: 日本紅豆餅 Japanese red-bean cakes. Just look for the red sign.

As for the main course, I highly recommend going diagonally across from this hustling and bustling corner (back towards the pier) to East Lake Restaurant (東湖菜館), the best food I've had on the island out of the several I've tried.

西蘭花帶子 Fried Scallops with Broccoli

薑蔥田雞 Fried Frog with Ginger and Spring Onion

招牌香妃雞 Boiled Chicken with[sic] Chinese Style

These are all standard Cantonese dishes, so there's nothing special to report about them. But wow, if you want standard Cantonese dishes done exceptionally well, eat here. Normally I'm not even a fan of scallops, definitely not frog either. But everything was in perfect proportion, down to the fragrantly pleasant scallions topped with mushrooms and a salty-sweet sauce over the hearty stalks of broccoli. The fried frog had a subtle charred taste that went especially well with the hint of ginger. As for the chicken, which is their specialty, it was a tad on the dry side but actually the natural juices of the chicken along with the special 香妃 (heung fei) cooking method - which I'm not sure exactly what it is, but I know it's special!) easily made for the best Cantonese-style chicken I've ever had.

Some of you may be wondering about the conspicuous absence of any seafood dishes, which of course Cheung Chau cuisine is known for. Oh well, there's always next time for me. But the interesting part is that you can go on over to the wet market yourself and buy your own "swimming fish" (游水魚 a Cantonese expression for extremely fresh fish) and other seafood, and then bring it to the restaurant where they'll prepare it for you. If you want to skip this step, you still have to either call or stop in earlier to let them know you want seafood because they don't keep any at their shop.


長洲
東灣路85號
Cheung Chau island
85 Tung Wan Road
29813869



So while I'd recommend exploring the many quaint little restaurants and shops on your own in Cheung Chau, I have to warn that I had a bad food experience at 海龍王海鮮大排檔 and one mediocre food experience at another ocean-side restaurant. This is not to say that the ocean-side restaurants are bad; I've been to a few good ones. But I personally think that if you want to go somewhere that you can't go wrong, head over to East Lake Restaurant, and check out the snack shops around it while you're at it.