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Cha chaan teng
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A cha chaan teng is a type of Chinese tea restaurant commonly found in Hong Kong, known for its eclectic and affordable menus which include many dishes from Hong Kong cuisine and Hong Kong-style Western cuisine. This type of restaurant is also popular in Macau. They can also be found in the Chinatown districts of many Western countries.
ha chaan teng establishments provide tea (usually weak tea) called "clear tea" (?? cing1 caa4), to customers as soon as they are seated.
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Encyclopedia
A cha chaan teng is a type of Chinese tea restaurant commonly found in Hong Kong, known for its eclectic and affordable menus which include many dishes from Hong Kong cuisine and Hong Kong-style Western cuisine. This type of restaurant is also popular in Macau. They can also be found in the Chinatown districts of many Western countries.
Name and description
Cha chaan teng establishments provide tea (usually weak tea) called "clear tea" (?? cing1 caa4), to customers as soon as they are seated. Some patrons use the hot tea to wash their utensils. The name, literally "tea restaurant", serves to distinguish itself from Western restaurants that provide water to customers instead of tea. The "tea" in the name refers to the inexpensive black tea, not the traditional Chinese tea served in traditional dim sum restaurants and teahouses (?? caa4 lau4). Moreover, some cha chaan tengs prefer the use of the word "café" in their names.
The "tea" may also refer to those tea drinks, such as the Hong Kong-styled milk tea and cold lemon tea, which are very popular in cha chaan tengs. The older generations in Hong Kong use yum sai cha (??? lit. "drinking Western tea"), when dining in these restaurants in contrast with yum cha.
Some restaurants operate in chains such as and .
Table manners
Customers usually select their seats freely in a cha chaan teng, but in a crowded restaurant they have to share a table with strangers. During peak hours, waiters in a cha chaan teng will seat their customers, "packing" as many customers into the restaurant as possible. This practice of sharing table is called dap toi (?? daap3 toi2 Pinyin: da pèi) in Chinese. For example, they will seat two groups of three customers at a six-seat table, to avoid having a pair of customers sitting with a group of three people, leaving one seat vacant. Sometimes already-seated customers have to move to accommodate the business.
In most cha chaan tengs, customers call out their orders to a waiter, who will jot down the prices of the ordered food (sometimes also the names of the food in local short forms; for instance, lemon tea is recorded as "0T", see simplifications on written Chinese in Hong Kong for details) on a piece of card/paper provided to every group of customers. After the meal, customers present the card/paper at the cash register to pay the bill.
Set meals
A feature of cha chaan tengs are the set meals. There are various sets throughout the day for breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner. The lunch and dinner sets usually include a soup and a drink. Generally there is an additional HK$2 charge for cold drinks. Sometimes an additional HK$1 is charged for toasted bread.
Other sets include:
- "Nutritious set" - It comes with milk and other nutritional food
- "Constant set" - Provided all day long, hence the name (usually an omelette and/ or instant noodles)
- "Fast set" - Immediately served (usually rice with sausages/ ham/ fried eggs with gravy)
- "Special set" - Chef's (or Boss's) recommendation
Variations
Other kinds of local restaurant related to cha chaan teng in Hong Kong include chaan sut (?? lit. "meal chamber"), bing sut (?? lit. "ice chamber"), and bing teng (?? lit. "ice dining room"), which a provide lighter and a limited selection of food than cha chaan teng.
In the old days, these eateries only sold different types of "ice", sandwiches and pasta but no rice plates. However, some of the restaurants bearing these titles today ignore the tradition, and provide all kinds of rice plates and even wonton noodles. Original chaan suts, bing suts and bing tengs, which can be regarded as the prototype of cha chaan tengs, are now scarce in Hong Kong.
In media
- The similarities between the different set meals were made fun of by My life as McDull, a McDull movie.
- An important part of Hong Kong culture, cha chaan teng is featured in many Hong Kong movies and TV dramas, including the popular sitcom Virtues of Harmony. The TVB-made soap opera tells the story of a family who runs a cha chaan teng, usually boasting the egg tart and "silk-stocking milk tea" produced by them. Stephen Chow also played a cha chaan teng waiter in the 1998-comedy Lucky Guy and a cha chaan teng meal-delivery-boy in the King of Comedy (1999).
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- Some beverage producers use the words cha chaan teng to name their products, such as "cha chaan teng milk tea" and "cha chaan teng lemon tea".
- On 19 December 2007, lawmaker Choy So Yuk proposed during a Legislative Council session that Hong Kong's cha chaan teng be recognised and put up to Unesco as an "intangible cultural heritage of humanity". The proposal came about after a recent Hong Kong poll found that seven out of ten people believe the cafes deserve a UNESCO cultural listing.
See also
External links
- of the cha chaan tengs found in Hong Kong
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