"To know a place, start with its food; to know the local food culture, start with its snacks." There are many kinds of snacks in Hong Kong, and each of them has its own story and contains the most authentic Hong Kong culture. Why can't you find pineapple in a pineapple bun, and why is a wife cake a gift for your wife on Valentine's Day? In Hong Kong, you can start with a cup of milk tea, a bowl of congee and vermicelli noodles, a dessert, a Hong Kong-style stir-fry or a Wai Tsuen Poon Choi to experience the most original Hong Kong sentiment. Pineapple buns are fluffy bread under a crispy pastry crust, and with their aromatic aroma, it's no wonder they've become a favorite in teahouses, sorbet cafes and bakery stores. This classic Hong Kong snack is named after its golden-colored, pineapple-shaped puff pastry. It is said that in the early years, Hong Kong people thought that bread tasted monotonous, so they added a layer of puff pastry made of sugar, eggs, flour and lard on top of the bread to add flavor and texture. A hot pineapple bun cut horizontally and sandwiched with a slice of cold butter is the pineapple butter that Hong Kong's local cartoon character, McDull, loves to eat. The crispy skin and sticky winter melon paste wrapped around the old-fashioned cake is a household name in Hong Kong. In the old days when transportation was not well developed, many people living in the urban areas would buy wife cakes as gifts when they went to Yuen Long in the New Territories! Nowadays, you can easily buy them at any Chinese bakery in town and enjoy them anytime. Legend has it that wife cake originated from an old teahouse in Guangzhou, which was famous for its dim sum and cakes. One day, a Chiu Chow pastry chef traveled to the teahouse to buy tea for his wife to taste, but she found it not as delicious as her mother's homemade winter melon corners. So, she used winter melon paste, sugar, flour to make a chic winter melon angle, the master ate a delicious, and invited the teahouse people to taste. Everyone is full of praise, the owner of the teahouse even improved this dessert for sale, called "wife cake". Egg tart afternoon tea to an egg tart, a cup of milk tea, is the habit of many Hong Kong people; to say that Hong Kong people's favorite local snacks, egg tart must also be on the list. Egg tarts are derived from the British dessert custard tart, but the Hong Kong way is different: baked with egg custard in a pie crust, a unique approach. Hong Kong egg tarts are also available in butter crust and puff pastry, each with its own clientele. The butter crust is similar to a pastry pie, with a crispy texture and more solidity, while the puff pastry is made up of layers of flaky pastry, which is more crunchy. Shakima Shakima is a dessert originated from Manchuria, which means "delicious snack" in Manchurian. Hong Kong people commonly call it "Ma Chai", and in the 1960s there was even a saying "Eat Ma Chai, Win Ma Chai", meaning that if you eat a sachima, you can win in horse racing. The process of making sakima is laborious and can take up to six hours, and you can still find handmade sakima in Hong Kong today. Egg custard When you walk past a street food store, you will see the chef holding an iron mold and baking it on the stove to produce small spherical cakes that are golden brown and crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside, that is egg custard. In addition to the original cream flavor, there are also many new flavors, such as chocolate, strawberry, coconut, and so on, with a wide variety of tastes and colors. Sugar cake is a crystal clear dessert with a fluffy, sweet but not greasy texture and a slight fermented rice sourness. Also known as "Lunjiao Gao" from Shunde, this sugar cake is made from simple ingredients, but the method of making it is complicated and requires a long period of fermentation. There are small stores in Hong Kong that use a secret recipe from Shunde and use freshly ground rice syrup every day, which gives the cakes a richer flavor than those made with bought sticky rice flour. Potting cake dessert in a small porcelain bowl, soft and smooth and red bean flavor, eat with a bamboo skewer along the edge of the bowl picked out skewered, you can walk around eating very convenient. In the past, there were only two traditional flavors, yellow sugar and white sugar, but now a variety of flavors have been developed, such as brown sugar, pumpkin and green tea.