Dai Pai Dong (大排檔) in Tai Po

What is dai pai dong (大排檔)?

I didn't go to this specific one, but this is what a dai pai dong usually looks like.

Hong Kong is known for their street food. Most of you will probably imagine those small street food vendors. According to Wikipedia, dai pai dong is characterised by its green-painted steel kitchen, untidy atmosphere, the lack of air conditioning, as well as a variety of low priced great-wok hei dishes. They're really not known for their cleanliness, but the food is really good and really cheap.

I did go to something similar to this in Shatin with a big group of exchange students from Fudan University. I didn't bring my camera though, so I don't have pictures. :(

BUT, I did go to an indoor dai pai dong with my Cantonese class (my favorite class, by the way).

Sister Sam Seafood Restaurant (三小姐) (Shop 35, 2/F, Tai Po Market Complex, Heung Sze Wui Street, Tai Po)

There's actually more people, and we ordered more food later!

REALLY good coconut pudding/jello thing, served hot

This is my whole class minus one.

Cantonese was my favorite class ever. I had classmates from the US, Canada, Japan, and Korea! 

The teacher is this awkward, funny guy. He really made class enjoyable. LOL. I accidentally corrected his English once because he was pronouncing allergy like allergEE (gee like geese). :X I didn't do it to be a smart ass though. I kind of muttered it under my breath, and he caught it. :(

Anyway, we had taken our final on the same day. Then, we met at night for dinner. The teacher wanted us to experience something more local, but he didn't want to go too far, so we ended up at Tai Po (I think I talked about it before). Dai pai dong for dinner is as local as it gets!

I had the same teacher again for second semester but with other classmates. It just wasn't the same with other people. :(

Jenn