In Cantonese, "牌" and "排" have the same sound, and many people mistakenly think that "大排档" means "a large row of people eating", and thus mistakenly written as "大排档". In Southeast Asia, Singapore and Malaysia, such as Fujian and Guangdong immigrants mainly in the region, and there is no big stall name, locally known as hawker centers.
History Editor
Dai pai dong food makes a feast
Dai pai dong food makes a feast
Dai pai dongs have a long history in Hong Kong. It flourished in the 1950s and 1960s; the number declined in the 1970s. From the 1950s onwards, the Hong Kong Government issued fixed hawker licenses to regulate the stalls, compared to other roadside stalls, the license plate of the stalls is a large piece of paper, which needs to be framed and hung in the position of the eye, and thus known as the "big card (big license plate) stalls (stalls)", and after the introduction of the mainland more writing "Dai Pai Dong In Cantonese, "dai pai dong (big license plate) stall (stall)" is used. In Cantonese, "档（档口）" and "摊（摊位）" both have the meaning of not fixed or mobile, that is to say, the location or market building is not a fixed store.
In 1972, the Hong Kong government announced a ten-year housing program, the government to build low-cost housing, the late emergence of the program is commonly known as the mushroom pavilion cooked food store design, business methods similar to the big stalls, but the store is no longer a wooden boards and tin box, but fixed in a designated location, but in the daily spoken language, this type of store is also known as "big stalls "
When Hong Kong underwent urban redevelopment in the 1980s, the hawker licenses of many Dai Pai Tongs were withdrawn, and some of them closed down, while some were moved into stores. For example, Re-Hing Barbecue Restaurant in its original location on Hark Street in Wan Chai, and Yung Kee and Kau Kee Beef Brisket on Kwong Yuen Street West in Central, all of them started out as Dai Pai Tongs, and have become famous eateries in Hong Kong.
The word "dai pai dong" or "dai pai dong" was introduced to mainland China in the 1990s, and initially it was mostly a bunch of food stalls, with barbecue, kebabs, spicy hot pots and simple dishes as the mainstay, which is more or less the same as "roadside stalls" in terms of significance. However, with the rise in people's spending power, many of these stalls have been substantially renovated and remodeled to become more beautiful. From Hong Kong's initial grassroots awareness, the stalls have developed into today's small assets, and have also witnessed China's economic changes over the decades. [2]
Cultural Editorial
Tai pai dongs offer a wide variety of food, both Chinese and Western, with Chinese dishes such as small vegetables, fried vermicelli and noodles, fish egg and vermicelli, and white congee and doughnuts, while Western dishes include toast, sandwiches, Hong Kong-style stocking milk tea, coffee, and mandarin ducks, and there are also Chinese desserts such as red bean paste and sesame paste.
The chicken wings at the hawker stalls are loved by everyone
The chicken wings at the hawker stalls are loved by everyone
Unlike Hong Kong's teahouses, which now sell more than a hundred different kinds of food, in the early days, most of the hawker stalls specialized in only one kind of food, and several of them operated together, so that a customer who ordered a rice dish with siu mei in one store could order a cup of tea with milk from another store, and then a dessert from a third store. This kind of eating habit, which does not emphasize the categorization of Chinese and Western food, has become the prototype of Hong Kong's cafes. Most of the tai pai dongs were made of tin and wooden planks, with green as the main color, the caterers seldom wore uniforms, and most of them only wore a sweatshirt with a towel wishing them good health, there was no air-conditioning in the room, and some of the tops were only made of green canvas, and there was a lack of sewage system, and the bowls and chopsticks were placed in the center of the table, which made the hygiene environment poorer; the stores would almost always provide a cup of light tea, but the customers usually didn't drink it, and instead, they would put their chopsticks and spoons into the cups and clean them.
Traditional dai pai dongs also seldom use paper to pay the bill, guests order food, according to the color of the dishes and so on when the bill, the partner called out "Kai Lai, how much money" (similar to "come on, how much money"), by the boss to directly collect the money.
Business Editor
The hustle and bustle of the stalls
The hustle and bustle of the stalls
The stalls are also brutally competitive with each other. Stalls with many diners, without the boss yelling, gathered more and more guests, while the stalls with fewer diners, more and more cold, but also because many people eat food has the habit of nostalgia, eat a good feeling, the next time will take the initiative to come back. The resulting Matthew effect, so that the hot stalls thrive, the cold stalls are difficult to sustain, and finally closed down. It does not matter if they close down, naturally, there are new people to grab in, a new round of competition began to play. Doing business in the stalls, looking lively, in fact, very hard. Every day to guard the sunset and dusk when you start to work, set up stalls and shacks, frying food for customers. No guests when the owner of the stalls free and worry, guests more often, they hate to give birth to more than three or four hands, busy non-stop, until late at night, the crowd dispersed, the owner of the stalls are not willing to continue to keep, hoping that the guests to come back to some, and then some, the day is almost dawn before closing the stalls to go home. By this time, the stall owner is already full of fumes, exhausted. But during the day is also can not enjoy rest, to buy food, food, do the next night's preparations. So week after week, the stall owners, all full of haggard face. Many of these stall owners are laid-off workers. As a channel for re-employment, the government is encouraging them, though it is also concerned about problems such as food safety and urban hygiene.
Food is the only thing that matters to people, and that's what you can see at a glance in the stalls.