Budding foodies Kay Chan, Candy Cheng, and Michael Suen founded Chorland, a modern dai pai dong restaurant chain promoting the old-school food culture.
Dai pai dongs, like other elements of Hong Kong’s former 20th-century food culture, are a dying art. With 18 “big licence restaurants” currently operating here, this figure pales in a city that once saw hundreds of ragtag restaurants line steep hills, residential neighbourhoods, and business districts.
Situated streetside or in aircon-less cavernous rooms and cooking using propane-heated woks, dai pai dongs have retained a passionate fan base within Hong Kong. Meals are customisable according to spice preference and salt level, plates of food are kissed with the sweet touch of the wok, and the seating is unapologetically simple and rough.
Licences for dai pai dongs are only legally transferable via the spouses of restaurant owners. Thus, a financial blip can permanently decimate a dai pai dong business. In May 2018, five friends sought to make a change to the system and institute a new era for the Hong Kong-style restaurant.
Candy Cheng, Michael Suen, and Kay Chan teamed up alongside two other budding foodie friends to found On On Dining in 2013, envisioned as a restaurant group launching Asian-inspired concepts beloved by the well-travelled troupe.
“We were just a group of friends interested in entering the food industry,” Kay tells Foodie. “We wanted to open a restaurant that served the food that we like.” Joined by professionals in the banking, marketing, and construction industries, the team opened Hot Pot Land (火鍋撚) in 2014, following a trip to Taiwan, “to launch a genuine Taiwanese hotpot restaurant in Hong Kong.”
Hong Kong is brashly nostalgic, unforgiving for its warmth held towards its rosy past, yet uniquely forward-facing when it comes to innovating and modernising. When the group successfully opened a barbecue restaurant and Asian tapas venue, Kay and her team ventured forward with their next project: to enshrine dai pai dong culture inside a modern restaurant, making twists on classic recipes, elevating the interior, and blasting the aircon.
“We had the chance to locate a store down an alley in To Kwa Wan and create Hong Kong food. Dai pai dong food is daily food in Hong Kong; it is in the collective memory of many in a time where this kind of restaurant is becoming less and less.” The small dai pai dong chain Chorland (楚撚記大排檔) was born in the spring of 2018.
“Usually, dai pai dongs can be located inside public estates or open-air street spots. We wanted to bring the concept indoors to enjoy the food with the same environment, but with better hygiene and more comfortable seating.”
With three shops now located in To Kwa Wan, Tsuen Wan, and Shek Tong Tsui, near the University of Hong Kong, the menu features nostalgic dishes found at Sham Shui Po or Central’s dai pai dongs: golden fried sweetcorn, pork knuckle, honey potato and beef tenderloin, stir-fried chive and dried shrimp, and sand squid balls.
The team were uniquely inspired by the Sha Tin-based Chan Kun Kee (陳根記) when strategising Chorland’s interior concept and menu. This dai pai dong restaurant is a childhood memory for Kay and her colleagues, cherished for its frenetic atmosphere that’s difficult to replicate.
To modernise dai pai dong food and culture for a younger audience and a more demanding food scene, twists on the menu come with embracing local trends. “Our most popular dish, the sweet-and-sour pork, includes a caramelised typhoon-spiral candy topping to add texture, with red and yellow pepper and fruit added for a crunchy taste.”
Other dishes like the lotus squid fish cakes are paired with gloopy truffle sauce, switching up traditional customs with the meaty patties, whilst their Ma Ma tomato scrambled egg dish soaks in a broth-heavy bowl with tender beef strips.
The interior is key to emulating the golden days of Hong Kong’s love affair with dai pai dongs, stylised with a green-washed interior familiar to former and current dai pai dongs. Neon lighting for bathroom signs, an alcohol station, and the kitchen are framed in each restaurant within the chain. “We even created a song list of the best 1970s and 80s Cantopop to bring back the heydays of the dai pai dong [culture],” Kay says.
Similarly, attention to customer service is vital for flipping the old-school restaurant style on its head. “Today, we strive to give good service to allow our customers to come in and sit comfortably eating our food.” Hong Kong restaurants have recently found themselves in a row over the return of the city’s signature harsh service, alienating both residents and tourists.
Long lines trail the entrances of all three chain locations owing to the group’s decision to open Chorland in residential areas, rather than “tourist locations or centralised areas. We want to serve [our dai pai dong food] to the local people, matching the old dai pai dong style established in residential areas to serve the people that live there.”
As Kay states, “The dai pai dong is very much [embedded] in our collective memory. It is a signature of Hong Kong and its food style. It is vital to include this in Hong Kong’s culture.”
Visit Chorland in To Kwa Wan, Tsuen Wan, and Shek Tong Tsui by booking here.
