chiuchow grocery store 潮州雜貨鋪

I have been wanting to write this post a long time. I have written a number of Chiuchow dishes. While Chiuchow is a part of the Canton province, it is often regarded by Cantonese as if their are of another province. Chiuchow is located at the Northeastern corner of the Canton province, adjacent to Fujian province. With their proximity the dialect and food of Chiuchow and Fujian have a lot of similarities.


For foodies of Chinese food Chiuchow cuisine is regarded completely apart from what is considered Cantonese for very good reasons. Chiuchow cuisine is very different from those of the greater Canton, especially Quanzhou in the Southwest. Overtime, however a few well regarded Chiuchow dishes have became commonly a part of Cantonese dishes.

When I visit Hong Kong in recent years, I always like to go to neighborhoods that suffer less from the ravage of progress. These tends to be those of the lower income. One of these neighborhoods is the Kowloon City 九龍城. It has the highest concentration of restaurants of different regions of China, as well as some of other Asian countries, including Thailand, Indian etc. The area have a relatively high population of Chiuchow people, so is no better place to see and taste the Chiuchow food.

the condemned buildings at the west corner of kowloon city bordering the very wealthy kowloon bay neighborhood

chiuchow soup noodle with fish ball and fish cake

bright and early in the morning on a Sunday and there is a long line waiting to get in

 the staffs are cooking up a storm

 anything that is now nailed down or chained down vanishes

 even if is chained down...

 most of the building in the area are over 80 years old - you can see signs of chiuchow 潮州 stores

 an old school glasssmith store

all sorts of welders for very good prices

 automotive service right on the street

 this is how the shops keep the parking spots

this guy is changing the automatic transmission fluid

in my last trip I stumbled upon this chiuchow grocery store - it has the biggest selection of chiuchow preserved or pickled food i have ever seen; many that are foreign to me

chiuchow people loves their salt preserved food and you can see a lot here; the second one from the left on the front row is blood clams 血蚶; as a child i loved blood clams 血蚶

Blood clam is my favorite clam. It is best eaten half cooked and the blood color juice is so tasty and briny. Unfortunately in most Asian countries it is now considered a serious health hazard to eat blood clam due to pollution of raw sewage. I constantly came across blood clam 血蚶 in Thailand but I could not get myself to eat them.

i was unable to take more pictures as the store staff gave me a hostile stare; many of these photos are out of focus as i didn't have time to manually set them as a result of my lens failure

the one at the front right is fresh bamboo shoots; i love fresh bamboo shoots of all kinds

this store sells all sorts of fish balls and fish cakes, as well as chiuchow braised meat 潮洲鹵味; you can see the chiuchow 潮洲 in many store signs

 this one sells hairy crabs - it is really a shanghai delicacy

 eggs cooked in a bed of coarse salt

a store that sell fresh fruits at the corner - jumbo pumpkins from japan costing just over $1000 USD

There are a lot of good Thai restaurants in the area. I was so envy of the thai ingredients you can find in these Thai grocery stores.
herbs and vegetable from thailand and the nearby regions

thai baked goods as well as the variety of cooked food in the ubiquitous plastic bags wrapped in the thai fashion

thai tropical fruits