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| Cha chaan teng | |||||||||||||
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| Traditional Chinese | 茶餐廳 | ||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 茶餐厅 | ||||||||||||
| Cantonese Jyutping | caa4 caan1 teng1 | ||||||||||||
| Literal meaning | "tea food hall" | ||||||||||||
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A cha chaan teng is a type of Chinese tea restaurant commonly found in Hong Kong, known for its eclectic and affordable menus which include many dishes from Hong Kong cuisine and Hong Kong-style Western cuisine. This type of restaurant is also popular in Macau. They can also be found in the Chinatown districts of many Western countries.
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Name and description
Cha chaan teng establishments provide tea (usually weak tea) called "clear tea" (清茶 cing1 caa4), to customers as soon as they are seated. Some patrons use the hot tea to wash their utensils. The name, literally "tea restaurant", serves to distinguish itself from Western restaurants that provide water to customers instead of tea. The "tea" in the name refers to the inexpensive black tea, not the traditional Chinese tea served in traditional dim sum restaurants and teahouses (茶樓 caa4 lau4). Moreover, some cha chaan tengs prefer the use of the word "café" in their names.
The "tea" may also refer to those tea drinks, such as the Hong Kong-styled milk tea and cold lemon tea, which are very popular in cha chaan tengs. The older generations in Hong Kong use yum sai cha (飲西茶 lit. "drinking Western tea"), when dining in these restaurants in contrast with yum cha.
Menus
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Cha chaan teng serves a wide range of food, from steak to wonton noodles to curry to sandwiches. Both fast food and à-la-carte dishes are available. A big cha chaan teng often consists of three cooking places: a "water bar" (水吧) which makes drinks, toast/sandwiches and instant noodles, a "noodle stall" which prepares Chiuchow-style noodles (including wonton noodles), and a kitchen for producing rice plates and other more expensive dishes. The invention of drinks like yuanyang (鴛鴦), Iced coffee with Lemon (凍檸啡) and Coca-Cola with Lemon (檸樂) are often credited culturally to this style of restaurant.
A typical menu includes:
- Noodles
- Wonton noodles
- Noodles with fishball and beefball
- Instant noodles with canned or preserved foodstuff, e.g. ham, pork luncheon meat, and preserved vegetables.
- Vermicelli
- Udon
- Pasta
(Pasta offered are often served with soup (usually macaroni) though not being al dente very often; also the spaghetti might be offered stir-fried, but is usually served with a thick sauce)
- Rice plates (usually referred to as 碟頭飯 dip6 tau2 faan6), as the varieties offered by different cha chaan teng are more or less the same.)
- Bread and cake
- "Freshly baked" (either provided by a supplier or baked on the premises)
- Egg tart, a baked egg custard.
- Pineapple bun (See note 2) or bor law yau (菠蘿油), a steaming hot sweet bun with a flavored top crust stuffed with a thick slice of butter.
- Bread with cream filling, topped with shredded coconut (椰絲奶油)
- French toast (西多士) - The local version is typically deep-fried until golden.
- Butter and jam on toast (油占多)
- Sandwiches
- With preserved foodstuffs
- With fresh meat and vegetables e.g. Sandwich with tomato slices and beef
- "Freshly baked" (either provided by a supplier or baked on the premises)
- Drinks (See notes 3-6)
- Hong Kong-style milk tea or lemon tea
- Coffee
- Straight (black coffee) (齋啡) (also known as 飛砂走奶 lit. fly sand run milk, 飛砂 means sugar-free, 走奶 means milk-free)
- With milk
- With lemon slices (檸啡)
- Yuanyang
- "Lemon Water" (檸水) (lemon slices in hot water with sugar or syrup)
- With lemon (e.g lemon coke 檸樂, lemon 7-up 檸七, lemon Ribena 檸賓)
- Horlicks
- Ovaltine
- Milo
Table manners
Customers usually select their seats freely in a cha chaan teng, but in a crowded restaurant they have to share a table with strangers. During peak hours, waiters in a cha chaan teng will seat their customers, "packing" as many customers into the restaurant as possible. This practice of sharing table is called dap toi (搭檯 daap3 toi2 Pinyin: dā tai) in Chinese. For example, they will seat two groups of three customers at a six-seat table, to avoid having a pair of customers sitting with a group of three people, leaving one seat vacant. Sometimes already-seated customers have to move to accommodate the business.
In most cha chaan tengs, customers call out their orders to a waiter, who will jot down the prices of the ordered food (sometimes also the names of the food in local short forms; for instance, lemon tea is recorded as "0T", see simplifications on written Chinese in Hong Kong for details) on a piece of card/paper provided to every group of customers. After the meal, customers present the card/paper at the cash register to pay the bill.
Set meals
A feature of cha chaan tengs are the set meals. There are various sets throughout the day for breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner. The lunch and dinner sets usually include a soup and a drink. Generally there is an additional HK$2 charge for cold drinks. Sometimes an additional HK$1 is charged for toasted bread.
Other sets include:
- "Nutritious set" (營養餐) - It comes with milk and other nutritional food
- "Constant set" (常餐) - Provided all day long, hence the name (it usually consists of a main course, omelette, white bread with butter and a drink)
- "Fast set" (快餐) - Immediately served (usually rice with sausages/ ham/ fried eggs with gravy)
- "Special set" (特餐) - Chef's (or Boss's) recommendation
Variations
Other kinds of local restaurant related to cha chaan teng in Hong Kong include chaan sut (餐室 lit. "meal chamber"), bing sut (冰室 lit. "ice chamber"), and bing teng (冰廳 lit. "ice dining room"), which a provide lighter and a limited selection of food than cha chaan teng.
In the old days, these eateries only sold different types of "ice", sandwiches and pasta but no rice plates. However, some of the restaurants bearing these titles today ignore the tradition, and provide all kinds of rice plates and even wonton noodles. Original chaan suts, bing suts and bing tengs, which can be regarded as the prototype of cha chaan tengs, are now scarce in Hong Kong.
In media
- The similarities between the different set meals were made fun of by My life as McDull, a McDull movie.
- An important part of Hong Kong culture, cha chaan teng is featured in many Hong Kong movies and TV dramas, including the popular sitcom Virtues of Harmony. The TVB-made soap opera tells the story of a family who runs a cha chaan teng, usually boasting the egg tart and "silk-stocking milk tea" produced by them. Stephen Chow also played a cha chaan teng waiter in the 1998-comedy Lucky Guy (行運一條龍) and a cha chaan teng meal-delivery-boy in the King of Comedy (1999).
- Some beverage producers use the words cha chaan teng to name their products, such as "cha chaan teng milk tea" and "cha chaan teng lemon tea".
- On 19 December 2007, lawmaker Choy So Yuk proposed during a Legislative Council session that Hong Kong's cha chaan teng be recognised and put up to Unesco as an "intangible cultural heritage of humanity". The proposal came about after a recent Hong Kong poll found that seven out of ten people believe the cafes deserve a UNESCO cultural listing.[1]
See also
Notes
- ^ Chong, Vince (23 December 2007). "Keeping alive a tea cafe culture". The Straits Times. p. 28.
External links
- A comprehensive gallery of the cha chaan tengs found in Hong Kong
Gallery
 A glass of "Red bean ice" provided by a bing sut in Sheung Shui |
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