To be honest, it’s my opinion that nowadays most restaurants have pretty good backstage hygiene – it’s more of a matter that the Chinese grew up learning to take these extra precautions at the dinner table, and it’s a habit that was passed down to their children. It’s not uncommon to find that these slightly more traditional and less technologically progressive restaurants won’t have industry dishwashing machines, so what the dishwashers will do is soak a big batch of dirty dishes in hot detergent-y water, then soak the same batch in clean water, and calling that ‘cleaned’. Perhaps a larger factor that contributes to this dish-washing phenomenon is the way many of these restaurants are understaffed often the dishwasher will be a tiny proportion of the restaurant employees, who are tasked with the duty of cleaning possibly hundreds upon hundreds of tableware items a day, at an eye-popping speed, often by hand. Some of the best restaurants just haven’t jumped onto any sort of accreditation/union bandwagon, and often they won’t have officially recognised hygiene ratings even if the food they prepare is completely safe and really, really yummy. The answer to that is that most restaurants aren’t filthy – they’re not about to poison anybody, just because of how rigorous food preparation in Chinese culture can be. Why do the Chinese do this? (Obviously this post deals with the way this sort of dish-washing is done specifically in Hong Kong, it varies across different regions) It’s not as if the restaurants are filthy, is it? Here’s a very good example of what it usually looks like: Generally, people will take the pot of tea in one hand, the pot of hot water in the other, and partially fill the large bowl, before proceeding to roll the cups and bowls in the water-tea-brine, soak the spoons and chopstick ends in them, and return everything back to their original places. This bowl is in fact used for the washing of all the utensils on the table, with the exception of the teapots as those are already in use, and usually the plates (because these are the real spittoons/spit-dishes/bone collector). What is this bowl for? Was the waiter just being lazy and forgot to bring it back into the kitchen? Was the waiter being lazy and forgot to equip everybody with one of their own? Was it a spittoon, of all things? NOTE: The extra bowl, communal chopsticks and teapots have been ommitted.

Here’s what a posh Chinese restaurant table might look like – although in Hong Kong, the tablecloths and furniture are often far more plainly coloured (beige, light rose gold, etc). For shared use, they will set down some shared chopsticks (often a different colour so it’s easily differentiated), a teapot of tea, a teapot of water, and a singular, bigger bowl. In most restaurants – real restaurants, not cha chaan teng like Tsui Wah or Maxim’s new chain restaurant Hong Kong Day – you’ll see that it’s common for the waiters to set down chopsticks, a plate, a cup, a bowl, and a spoon per table place. Such is the nature of the city that it’s possible to survive there without ever touching upon some of the more indigenous customs. Goodness, I know people who’ve lived here all their lives who can speak little more than a word or so of Cantonese.

Sum Sze Tam explores the practice in further detail:īeing in a legitimately Chinese restaurant can be a very strange affair for those not familiar with doing so – just because you’re a Hong Kong resident, doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve been to yum cha or dined in a jow low (a traditional chinese restaurant). The washing of dishes in traditional restaurants is a custom either completely taken for granted, or otherwise wholly unheard of by others. Eating traditional food isn’t limited to a purely tastebud-ly experience – it’s a fact that you’re in a traditional environment, too.

Chinese diner aiya