Roast duck rice from Wai Kee, which serveshalal food in the Bowrington Road Cooked Food Centre.PHOTO: THE STAR

In all of Hong Kong, there are a total of51 restaurants, 13 hotel restaurants and six theme park restaurants that haveso far received halal certification

(THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - Touching downat the Hong Kong International Airport on a mild, overcast afternoon in lateApril, I expected my brief stay here to be similarly overcast.

The Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) wantedto show Malaysian, Indonesian, and Singaporean journalists, as well as touragency representatives, just what this Special Administrative Region of thePeople’s Republic of China has to offer Muslim holidaymakers.

I did not expect much, because Hong Kongisn’t obliged to make it nice for Muslim tourists, I thought.

Yet I was pleased to find that theterritory has potential to be a great place for Muslim travellers.

Eat

In all of Hong Kong (that is, Hong KongIsland, Kowloon, and the New Territories), there are a total of 51 restaurants,13 hotel restaurants and six theme park restaurants that have so far receivedhalal certification by The Incorporated Trustees of the Islamic Community Fundof Hong Kong.

You can see the complete list on HKTB’swebsite (just type “halal” in the search field).

My troupe visited a few of these, the firstbeing Wai Kee, an outlet that serves halal food in the Bowrington Road CookedFood Centre in Wan Chai district. The food centre is accessible by an elevatortucked into a nook on one side of the building ? one floor up and you arethere. In this air-conditioned indoor collection of eateries, Wai Kee is easilyfound ? just look for the word “halal” in Arabic script.

Owned by a Muslim, Wai Kee serves roastduck, curry dishes, set dishes with rice and noodles, among others. Visitorshere may want to try the roast duck, for which Wai Kee is apparentlywell-known.

Another good place to eat is the IslamicCentre Canteen, which can be found on the fifth floor of the Masjid Ammar &Osman Ramju Sadick Islamic Centre, not far from the Bowrington Road Cooked FoodCentre.

Simply laid-out, this friendly eateryserves a variety of Guangdong-style dishes, including dim sum. If you everwanted to try halal dim sum, then this is a good place to start. We werepleased with our meal here.

The centre also has two prayer halls on thefloors below; one for men, one for women.

If you like cakes, buns, cookies and othersuch baked goods, visit Chrisly Cafe on the third floor of the Shun Tak Centreon Hong Kong Island.

This cafe isn’t entirely halal: it is atraditional cha chaan teng (“tea restaurant”) with a halal-certified bakerysection, entirely separate from the main food kitchen. This is why it is listedas Chrisly Bakery on HKTB’s online list of halal eateries. The owners hope toeventually have the whole restaurant certified halal.

Chrisly Cafe serves pineapple bun, eggtart, “wife cake” and peanut butter biscuit, among others. These goodies arecooked fresh and will only last a few days. I guess they don’t contain a lot ofpreservatives.

사진02

(from left) Have some milk tea withpineapple buns and egg tarts at Chrisly Cafe. PHOTO: THE STAR

For Moroccan fare, try the CasablancaRestaurant & Cafe located on the sixth floor of the Ashley Centre inKowloon. The address is easy to spot at night ? just look for the lightprojection at the doorway to the elevator. Think, Bat-signal.

The dining area is well furnished, andfeatures paintings with a decidedly mideastern slant. With the hookah availablefor one’s indulgence, it almost feels like I’m not in Hong Kong. They serveMediterranian and Asian food; their menu even includes pastas and pizzas.

The helpings are generous, too. I made themistake of trying to finish my chicken doner with rice all by myself instead ofsharing it with everyone, and found it really difficult. This was an unexpectedproblem I found in Hong Kong ? I was often taken aback by how much I had toconsume and as a result, wasted food. Terrible!

On our third night in Hong Kong, my groupwas scheduled to eat in Jashan Celebrating Indian Cuisine (yes, that’s thename) on the island.

Instead, we ate at Ma’s Restaurant inKowloon. Whatever the reason for the change in venue, I’m sure glad ithappened, because if there is one place you must dine in Hong Kong, then it isMa’s Restaurant.

Everything I ate there was delicious. I wasamazed. What to recommend? How about EVERY­THING?

Okay, if I had to pick one thing, it wouldbe the veal goulash, which is a bun stuffed with beef. That description, oreven the way it looks, does not do justice to how it tastes. Just one bite andit is almost… heavenly. And that pretty much describes the other dishes we had.

사진03

Every single dish we ate in Mas Restaurantin Kowloon was delicious. PHOTO: THE STAR

Other than restaurants, you can try LeeKeung Kee North Point Egg Waffles, at King’s Road in North Point. This wasrecommended by the Michelin Street Food 2017 guide.

In Sham Shui Po, you can eat street foodala Kwan Kee Store and A1 Food Company. Kwan Kee Store offers Chinese ricepudding, white sugar cake and red bean pudding, while A1 Tofu Company gets youtofu desserts.

If you like theme parks, you may be pleasedthat Hong Kong Disneyland has two halal-certified restaurants, Tahitian Cafe inAdventure Land and Explorer’s Club in Mystic Point. There’s also an outdoorvending cart called Main Street Market. We ate in Explorer’s Club, which seemslike a cross between a high school canteen and a fast food joint, only muchnicer.

The other theme park we visited, Ocean ParkHong Kong, operates two halal-certified kiosks: Dive Into A Float at MarineWorld and Panda Food To Go at the Amazing Asian Animals.

However, beware the kiosk called MalayFoods ? it is not halal!

Pray

HKTB’s website lists five mosques (four onthe Island, one in Kowloon) that serve Hong Kong’s more than 200,000 Muslims(Wikipedia lists a sixth, in Kowloon). We visited three of them.

The first was Hong Kong Island’s first, theJamia Mosque, which we entered via the Central Mid Levels Escalator. Alsocalled Lascar Temple, it was built in 1849 and rebuilt in 1915. We performedour first prayers here.

It is a modestly-sized mosque that isdwarfed by tall buildings on every side. It can fit maybe 400 worshippers (myestimate), with the ablution area in a separate building. The building’s soleminaret sits on top of the entrance arch.

Another mosque is Masjid Ammar of thepreviously mentioned Masjid Ammar & Osman Ramju Sadick Islamic Centre. Assaid before, the prayer halls are separated into two floors, one for men, theother for women.

The Masjid Kowloon & Islamic Centre inKowloon, built in 1896, is a major landmark in Tsim Sha Tsui. from the gate, itwas almost as if I was about to enter a stately museum.

You may be surprised to know that the118-story International Commerce Centre in Kowloon has a prayer room. Locatedin SKY100, an observation deck on the 100th floor, the prayer room is clean,much like the rest of the observation deck and a little small, but I thinkadequate. After all, Malaysia has even smaller prayer rooms in certain places ?in fact, positively tiny.

Other than mosques and your hotel room, youmay have to ask around if the building you happen to find yourself in has aprayer room. It couldn’t hurt. Disneyland has one at the previously mentionedExplorer’s Club (just one, for both men and women), but outside the club thereis no obvious indication of its existence. Ocean Park offers prayer rooms, butyou must ask Guest Relations via the General Enquiry Hotline at +(852) 39232323.

Ocean Terminal, which we also visited, doesnot seem to have one.

But as we found out, Hong Kong is notwithout amenities for Muslims. Once you have figured where you can eat andpray, you can enjoy Hong Kong more easily.

Link-> https://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/food/plenty-of-halal-food-options-for-muslim-travellers-in-hong-kong