Who did you hear that Cantonese people like to eat "tilapia"? Cantonese people don't like tilapia that much. You have been to Guangdong, and you will find this little detail. You seldom see tilapia in restaurants in Guangdong. When you visit a Cantonese family, they will treat you with big fish and meat, but you can't find tilapia either.

Cantonese people prefer to eat grass carp, bighead carp and shad, or high-grade osmanthus fish, perch and gem fish. Tilapia is definitely not the favorite of Cantonese people. This is a rule that I found from the dining tables of my own family and others' families after living in Guangdong for decades.

In Zhongshan, Guangdong, there is also a kind of "crispy pomfret", which is actually a species of grass carp, but its meat is very crisp, so it has such a name. Anyway, no matter how you cook or stew it, its meat won't soften, and it still tastes crisp. Every year, there will be a crispy meat carp food festival, which is very special and distinctive.

As for the tilapia you mentioned, in fact, more people in Guangdong like to call it "longevity fish". They don't like this kind of tilapia very much. Because tilapia is more suitable for stewing than steaming. However, Cantonese cuisine prefers steaming to braising. So tilapia is not so popular with Cantonese people.