Hop Yik Tai Snacks

Still loving their cheung fun and turnip and pork skin stew even though they recently got a Michelin star. This tiny place however got super duper crowded because of the star and service was going downhill as they can’t handle the customer load. I just hope they won’t get kicked out of their shop by the landlord because they got famous.
Came here for the aforementioned cheung fun (rice rolls) and pork skin and turnip stew. The line for takeaway/​eat and go cheung fun was wrapped around the building. We lined up while hoping for a spot inside the tiny shop because wife really recommends the stew but you can only get it inside. We got lucky and wife used her HK skills to get us seats. As long as you can sit your butt on a stool, you have a seat. We got the Cheung fun with the sweet sauce, sesame sauce, sweet soy sauce, and sesame seeds. Came out piping hot and you can smell the rice flavor. The turnip in the stew was sweet and the soup was full of turnip flavor while the pork skin soaks up all this goodness.

Fantastic cheung fun at awesome prices. It cost my friend and I $ 9 for 6 rolls, and that was enough for us to share.
The rolls come with a choice of sauces mixed together: thick sesame oil (so thick it almost resembles and has the richness of peanut oil with a little peanut butter mixed in), a red sauce my friend called ‘Cantonese catchup’, and a dark oyster-​style sauce. On top are sesame seeds.
You can perch in the shop’s diminutive interior, stand around in the alleyway to eat your steaming cheung fun from the plate with long toothpicks, or you can ask the server to get it to go, and it will be placed on a sheet of wax paper inside a plastic bag, to keep all the good juices in.
The place serves other things like siu mai and fried noodles, but I only tried the cheung fun. I’ve been craving more since.

The rice rolls here are very smooth but growing up eating rice rolls from Macau, I am partial to the flavors from home. (Can you believe even rice rolls have local flavors?) I heard the take-​out side makes better rice rolls but I have yet to try and confirm the statement. Regardless, the portions are huge compared to the price they charge you so it still makes a good snack in the afternoon (or breakfast for that matter)!

If you come to Hong Kong, authentic steamed rice rolls are hard to find, they can only be found in local places only the locals would know. My cousin took me here, no «qwie Los» here unless it got recommended by a friend. Sharing table is the norm in places like this. Grab any seat you can. They have 3 sizes for the steamed rice rolls, small, medium, and large at affordable prices. It is freshly made and tasted very soft, you can add as much sauce as you want. We also tried the noodles in soy sauce, this was ok, nothing special. They also have fresh warm soy milk. There is another steam rice roll place in Sai Kung, it’s authentic there too.
FYI: no need to tip in HK, but if you want to give your money away, give it to me.

Oh yes! 豬腸粉!! Steamed rice rolls with «hella» sauces!
When thinking about 豬腸粉, some Depeche Mode song lyrics come to mind IMMEDIATELY.
Martin Gore is a f**king genius, he can even be singing about Hong Kong food and he will make me swoon.
Just Can’t Get Enough: «When I’m with you baby, I go outta my head, I just can’t get enough! I just can’t get enough». (OK Vince Clarke wrote this one, it’s ok.)
Blue Dress: «Put it on, and don’t say a word, put it on, the one that I prefer» «Can you believe, something so simple, something so trivial, makes me a happy man, can’t you understand. Just how easy it is to please me.»
Yes I simply cannot get enough of 豬腸粉! And in reference to the Blue Dress lyrics… PUT IT ON, refers to the various mixed sauces that is a pre-​requisite! Soy sauce, drizzle of lard or soy bean oil, TOASTED SESAME SEEDS, sweet sauce, sesame sauce, chili sauce. YES PUT IT ALL ON!!! I’m the type of guy that needs lots and lots of sesame seeds in his 豬腸粉.
豬腸粉 may not be one of those cool snacks like macarons or pork belly steamed buns, but it is an iconic food representative of Hong Kong food culture, and holds very dear to my heart. Probably something many westerners won’t understand, unless they are fanatical about Vietnamese food, and know what «banh cuon» is all about.
At Hop Yik Tai 合益泰小食, the best experience is to locate the storefront, and just look for the line.
Have some coins ready, and know exactly how many rolls you want. Tell the lady, who will then pick up the required number of steamed rolls you want, then take a pair of scissors to snip into small bite sized pieces (or SLURP size pieces really), over a piece of wax paper on top of a plate. Then you decide on the sauces. For me, «EVERYTHING!» and «SESAME SEEDS PLEASE!». After you achieve your goal of securing a plate of the goods, move to the side, and stand in the alleyway to pick up the cut rolls with the wooden skewer sticks. Bring it to your mouth and SLURP it over.
Be sure you are not wearing white, in case you make a mess in the process ;-).
Yes the 豬腸粉 are not made on the premise, they are outsourced to a local vendor, but made fresh over there and brought over to Hop Yik Tai to steam. What HYT does in addition is create their own set of sauces, and that pretty much completes the circle.
Well words fail sometimes… but once you’ve had microwaved or pre-​refrigerated 豬腸粉 in the USA, store bought sauces (with chemicals and preservatives), it just does not compare to what HYT does. Smooth, slippery, and just insanely addictive. If I were an animal I would probably devour two orders… but if you are doing a food crawl («sweeping the streets») then one order is enough for a sample, or a quick fix.
I swear this stuff is like doing drugs, or a cheap B&G (blow and go), and in the alleyway no doubt. :-o
Longing for the day that I return to visit HK again, and Hop Yik Tai will forever be a must-​stop for me.