The delights of indigenous Tanka cuisine that can still be found in Hong Kong, Asian comics blazing the stand-up trail, and a bike ride around South Korea’s Jeju Island
Get ready to get hungry. That was my main takeaway from reading this week’s cover story. Rice noodles topped with roast meat. Pepper-fried squid. Steamed fish with dried mandarin peel. Vanessa Lee traces the history of Tanka cuisine, once cooked aboard sampans docked in the harbours of Aberdeen, Shau Kei Wan and Tai O, and the families keeping it alive.
The Tanka are one of Hong Kong’s original indigenous communities, and their cuisine grew out of life on the water: fresh catch, preserved ingredients, cooking built for tight spaces. These days, not many places are still doing it. But a few remain.
There’s Lam Lau in Aberdeen, still serving the boat noodles and broth he’s been making for decades, but now from a moored kitchen. On Lamma Island, Christina Keung Mee-yee runs the Genuine Lamma Hilton Fishing Village Restaurant, a Tanka eatery her parents accidentally started in the 1970s while trying to sell ice. She pours biodynamic wine while her brother handles the kitchen, turning out straightforward, unfussy but delightful food with locally sourced ingredients.
