Milestones in Hong Kong history: its first 7-Eleven, first shopping mall, first fusion restaurant, first Lan Kwai Fong club and more – do you know them?
- What better time to celebrate nostalgia than Mid-Autumn Festival? We look back at some of Hong Kong’s turning points that shaped the city we know today
Hong Kong is ever-changing: skyscrapers and tower blocks mushroom on the city’s skyline, land is reclaimed along the harbourfront, new neighbourhoods redefine cool as transport networks spread their tentacles. And throughout the course of its history, social change in the city has been marked by a series of milestones that have shaped the way we live today.
Here, Post Magazine looks back at some famous Hong Kong firsts – from temples and social housing to nightspots and restaurants; turning points that in one way or another have signalled change in Hong Kong.
Tai Ping Koon: Hong Kong’s first fusion restaurant
Many of Hong Kong’s most beloved businesses are run by second-, third- or fourth-generation families, giving them their character and the sense of being intrinsic to the city’s fabric.
As Tai Ping Koon’s fifth-generation owner, Andrew Chui Shek-on beats them all. Softly spoken yet passionate about the fusion food his family helped to pioneer in the city, he says, “[Tai Ping Koon] is a Chinese restaurant legend.”
Inside the restaurant’s oldest branch, in Yau Ma Tei, orange tablecloths and leather booths channel 1960s glamour. And much like the decor, little has changed when it comes to the cuisine – Western dishes blended with Chinese ingredients to suit the tastes of locals.
Chui’s great-great-great-grandfather, Chui Lo Ko, opened his first restaurant in Guangzhou in 1860, where his dishes became known as “soy sauce Western”, due to his habit of adding soy sauce to everything in the belief that his Chinese guests would not want to stray too far outside their comfort zones.
