“If you did something wrong to your parents or grandparents, then Songkran is about washing away those problems and starting fresh,” she says of one of the most important events on the Buddhist calendar.
Songkran HK 2024 will be held at The Space at D2 Place One in Lai Chi Kok from April 4-8, with Hong Kong celebrating the festival before the official April 13-16 dates to avoid clashing with another event in the city.
For those hungry for Thai food options, Chan recommends Kowloon City, Hong Kong’s “Little Thailand”. The moment you step out of the MTR’s Sung Wong Toi station (exit B1), you are greeted by dozens of Thai restaurants and grocery stores.
Thai flags flap in front of shops selling street snacks, Thai Singha beer and ready-made soups and sauces (green curry, tom yum), while Buddha offerings of fruit, flower garlands (phuang malai) and incense are everywhere.
Chan shares some of her favourite Thai restaurants in the neighbourhood and beyond.
1. Thai Palace Restaurant
Two adjoining restaurants have the same name, owner and menu, which is not just vast but heavy on seafood: its pepper crab with jelly noodles is a bestseller.
The pad Thai, a traditional stir-fried dish made with rice noodles, shrimps, peanuts, scrambled egg and bean sprouts – this one is topped with plump prawns – is also popular. Wash it down with a young coconut.
15 Nga Tsin Long Road, Kowloon City, tel: 2382 0900
2. BTS Food Station
On an Easter public holiday, this cheap and cheerful local favourite was packed with customers. Chan loves the yellow curry seashell and crispy pork knuckle.
The owner, she adds, operates another of her favourite restaurants – the Minibangkok Thai Food Station with outlets in Kowloon City and Causeway Bay.
G/F, 11 Nam Point Road, Kowloon City, tel: 27167828
3. Golden Aroy Thai Restaurant
At this popular spot in Lai Chi Kok, Chan cannot resist the grilled pork neck boat noodles.
“Twenty years ago, people in Hong Kong didn’t eat grilled pork neck,” she says. That changed when Thai people started serving the dish. “Today, many Hong Kong people like it but it’s become expensive and difficult to find.”
Those with a sweet tooth and a love for coconut can dip into the coconut pudding with crispy shredded coconut, a layered dessert with coconut sugar on the surface, frozen coconut milk in the middle and frozen coconut water on the bottom.
Shop 102, 1/F, Elite Industrial Centre, 883 Cheung Sha Wan Road, Lai Chi Kok, tel: 2889 3478
4. Here Thai Market
Chan’s go-to dish at this Sha Tin hotspot is tom yum kung, Thailand’s much-loved hot and sour soup with shrimp. She also likes the fried rice with crabmeat.
Shop A216, 2/F, Phase III, New Town Plaza, 18 Sha Tin Centre Street, Sha Tin, tel: 3108 2197
5. Siam Garden Thai Restaurant
Thailand has more than 1,000 islands, so it is not surprising that seafood is a big part of the nation’s cuisine.
Chan gets her fish fix at Siam Garden Thai Restaurant in North Point, where she loves the salt baked sea bass and the basa fish with plum sauce.
Shop B, G/F, 116-122 Tsat Tsz Mui Road, North Point, tel: 2561 7288
