Dai Pai Dong represents a perfect example of quintessential Hong Kong dining, just like having your dim sum. These street-food style restaurants have been offering wok seared delights for decades, however, they are getting really scarce these days. This is mainly to do with the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department refusing to renew any dai pai dong licenses, making dai pai dong rarer and rarer. Legacy laws are just about saving the day though, as they imply as long as a generation is passing down their licence to the next, they will be kept alive. We came to the vibrant Sing Kee for our first night, where we saw westerners, tourists and locals alike dining side by side on the street, sipping Blue Girl lager. The place was heaving!
Fear not – the menus are in English!
And the seafood is illustrated with handy pics. 
Dai pai dong food with ice cold crisp Blue Girl is a marriage made in heaven
Chicken kidney in salt & pepper $58 were crunchy chicken gizzards, fragrant from five spice and smoky from the wok. It was a great dish to start the meal and really get the taste buds going!
Fried pork ribs in sweet & sour sauce $58 is a legend of a dish and is done well here.
Beef with bitter melon $48 came out piping hot and was a real treat to eat. The bitter flavours, umami blackbeans and sweet beef all working in harmony. It’s a tried and tested flavour combo. 
Sliced pork with baby bak choi $48 was half a success, the vegetables were beautiful but the meat, although with a lovely sear was rare in the middle. 
Stir fried clams with blackbean sauce $58 were sweet little delights that had be be slurped from the shell or picked with chopsticks. I remember having them at the Mayflower years ago and thought they were hair-raisingly good. A total must have IMHO. 
Last but not least we had chunky batons of eggplant that come with a bubbling hot sauce audible enough to hear through the crowds, which was filled mince pork and nuggets of salted fish $59. It was pitch perfect work and it’s great to taste aubergine hot-rodded by those wonderful ingredients.
The verdict:
When did I go? Nov 2016
The damage: $100 per head with a beer (£10).
The good: For no thrills authentic Cantonese food with some great ingredients, vibrant surroundings and cold beer for next to nothing? It’s hard not to like it. I’d definitely revisit.
The bad: If you’re a stickler for hygiene, walk away as you will not like it. However, if you can put up with the smell of the streets bullying your nostrils then you’ll be rewarded handsomely.
Rating: 3.5/5
Would I go again? Yes
Address: 82 Stanley Street, Central, Hong Kong
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