More cafe fare

Every month, we resolve to not spend so much at the beginning that we have nothing left the week before payday. But we never do it.

Being down to double digits in our bank account meant cutting right back on eating out.

So I thought we'd check out the cha chan teng next to 7-Eleven to see if we could get an okay meal for less than HK$50. And we could.

The food is nothing fancy. The lunch sets for example, are around HK$30ish and contain exactly what is stated on the board, without even an extra slice of tomato or lettuce to liven up the mix.

The board is in both Chinese and English so you can just point and order.

But it was cheap and filling – and, most importantly, will fill our tummies until payday.

Cafe fare

Being Chinese illiterate, I haven't dared step into the cha chan teng opposite Wellcome. But I have seen loads of people in it so I knew the food had to be cheap and good.

Today I woke up with a craving for the local fried beef noodles so I finally screwed up my courage to walk into the place.

As expected, they didn't have an English menu but the waitress speaks English so she translated the daily specials for me.

I did get my beef noodles. And it was all I'd expected it to be: juicy slices of beef, oil-slicked noodles, sweet cabbage and an amazing smoky wok hei (wok breath).

All for HK$33, with an iced lemon tea.

It was worth going off the beaten track, food-wise, after all.