Mouthing Off | Outdoor alfresco dining in Hong Kong: why would you want to do it? Especially during summer

Alfresco dining is a bit like Chinese opera. Everyone claims it’s great to encourage and promote it as a part of local culture, but the truth is few people want to endure an entire evening of it. From what I see, the new generation finds eating outside about as appealing as a night of clanking cymbals and shrieking songs.

Have you ever tried to digest a meal sitting outdoors at a dai pai dong (street stall) in Hong Kong in the middle of summer? If it’s not the heat, humidity or pollution ruining your appetite, then it’s the bugs and mosquitoes annoyingly nibbling your ankles while you try to enjoy a few blue-collar Cantonese dishes in the night air.

Tourists might go to Temple Street in Yau Ma Tei for a must-try experience of claypot rice while sitting on stools on the kerb, but nobody I know in Hong Kong is remotely interested in being exposed to back-alley aromatic garbage and fragrant sewage during supper. If there’s a choice between air-conditioned indoor seating or a true alfresco table, you can bet locals will sit inside.

Thailand, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia have thriving alfresco street food cultures. Hong Kong, for better or worse, has moved beyond street dining, the same way we’re past riding rickshaws to get somewhere. Other cities also have dedicated and tented cooked food centres with parking, cooling fans and the open space to enjoy a festive environment.

The vanishing outdoor tradition here isn’t just the fault of myopic officials not issuing dai pai dong licenses any more. The real problem is there really isn’t much interest. Alfresco isn’t popular because it’s not especially fun or exciting here. The only people who actually prefer outdoor dining are smokers and expats who just arrived from a cold and gloomy climate.