'Snake soup is a winter speciality because it is nourishing and warms your stomach,' says Tse.

'Our soup base is made with traditional Chinese medicines and boiled for four hours before being mixed with ingredients such as snake meat, mushrooms, dried orange peel, ginger, chicken and black fungus. It's served with sliced lemon leaves and crunchy flour crackers for only HK$30.'

Shea Wong Sin has been serving its fare from a number of locations in Sham Shui Po for the past 40 years. Its signature snake soup is created from five different species - the Indo-Chinese rat snake, Chinese cobra, copperhead racer, banded krait and the agkistrodon pit viper.

'The more poisonous the snake, the greater the medicinal value,' says Tse, who advocates snake as a healthy food because it's low in cholesterol.

'When eating snake soup, it's important that you're in good health, otherwise it won't yield the best results.

'Autumn and winter are the best times to catch snakes because the snakes are fat. But to cope with consumer demand, this traditional delicacy is made available all year round,' says Tse.

His snakes are sourced from Wuzhou, a renowned snake-farming area in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

Shea Wong Sin not only makes snake soup, it serves dishes such as snake gall bladder - mixed with wine to increase the body's metabolism - turtle herbal jelly, turtle soup, snake wine, sticky rice and a medicinal snake stew. Tse says he sells 100 to 200 snakes on most days, but when business is brisk, that number can reach 300 to 400.

A few doors down from the snake shop is another Hong Kong favourite. Lau Sum Kee noodle shop is home to chewy bamboo noodles, which get their name from the bamboo pole used to press and flatten the dough. The Lau family opened their dai pai dong in the 1970s.

'There were about 60 dai pai dong in Fuk Wing Street and Kweilin Street back then,' says Lau Fat-cheung, a third generation noodle maker. 'Because of the high rents, not many speciality food stores survived, so my dad insists on making quality noodles by hand to stay competitive.'

The noodles, made with duck eggs and imported Canadian flour, are smooth textured and richly aromatic. It takes nearly eight hours a day to make enough noodles to fill 600 bowls.

Signature dishes include shrimp egg noodles with shrimp dumplings and wontons. Depending on seasonal availability, customers shouldn't leave without trying the braised mushroom and giant shrimp served with rice noodles. The noodle shop also makes a traditional condiment of sour turnip with chilli and vinegar.

'Our dishes range from HK$18 to HK$32 - cheaper than in Mong Kok, where high rents push up costs,' says Lau. 'Sham Shui Po still offers great cuisine at affordable prices.'

So Shun-lim has run Kung Wo Dou Bun Chong, a famous tofu maker on Pei Ho Street, for just 12 years, although the business is far older. When the founder emigrated to Canada in 1997, he jumped at the chance to own and manage the shop.

'Kung Wo is a quality brand and I have been a big fan of their products since I was a child,' says So, who grew up in Sham Shui Po. 'My parents were in the food hawker business and Kung Wo is part of my childhood.'

The shop, situated on the ground floor of an old building at Pei Ho Street is simple, with seating for 30 customers and a production area at the back of the premises.

'I am still using the giant 121kg stone grinder which has been used for almost a century,' says So. 'This is why our tofu is as smooth as silk. The process is something technology cannot replace.'

The shop offers a range of soya bean products such as soya bean milk, fresh square bean curd, stir-fried bean curd stuffed with minced fish, preserved bean curd, and their signature dish, sweet bean curd dessert, dou fu fa. It's cheap, from HK$4 for a glass of soya milk, to HK$24 for a jar of preserved bean curd.

'I can sell more than 1,600 bowls of sweet bean curd a day,' So says. 'All soya beans are imported from Canada and they're soaked for six hours before grinding. My dishes attract Japanese and Taiwanese tourists as well as local residents. It's a healthy food with production limited to our premises - there's no wholesaling to other restaurants.'

Over at the junction of Pei Ho and Fuk Wa, it's normal to see a queue of people standing outside a small store called Kwan Kee. Stacks of rattan trays filled with Chinese dessert snacks such as red bean cake, white- or yellow-bowl pudding, nine-layer black sesame pudding and white sugar cake are snapped up quickly.

Owner Fu Wing-cheung and his brother have carried on the family business for 40 years and stick to their own recipes.

'Unlike our competitors who count on ready-made flour, we use rice and natural fermentation in our kitchen,' says Fu. 'We soak, grind and ferment the ingredients. I see this vocation as preserving a tradition.'

The Shunde-born brothers are busy preparing festive snacks for the Lunar New Year: turnip cake, taro cake and the sweet New Year cake. White sugar cake usually sold after the Mid-Autumn Festival is available year-round, but the piece de resistance is the bowl pudding with red bean flavouring - an average of 500 are sold every day.

Eat streets

1. SanQiaoyiyi

3-5 Castle Peak Rd, tel: 2776 6989

2. Luk Lam Dessert

77-79 Un Chau St, tel: 2361 4205

3. Tam Chai Yunnan Noodles

69 Un Chau St, tel: 2708 7055

4. Tong Shui Lo Dessert

143G Kweilin St, tel: 2708 7472

5. Shea Wong Sin

50 Kweilin St, tel: 2386 1593

6a. Lau Sum Kee Noodle

48 Kweilin St (headquarters), tel: 2386 3533

6b. 82 Fuk Wing St (branch)

7. Eat Together

84 Fuk Wing St, tel: 2386 8277

8. Thai Food Specialist

101 and 103 Fuk Wing St, tel: 2314 3333

9. Wai Kee Noodle Cafe

165-167 Pei Ho St, tel: 2387 6515

10. Kung Wo Dou Bun Chong

118 Pei Ho St, tel: 2386 6871

11. Kwan Kee

115-117 Fuk Wa St, tel: 2360 0328