Hong Kong is one of the most vibrant food capitals in the world, with a staggering 12,000 restaurants to choose from. The Michelin Guide launched here at the end of last year- a foreboding green light for celebrity chefs to open expensive gourmet restaurants. They would be missing the point: Hong Kong certainly isn't somewhere you have to spend a fortune for fabulous Chinese food.
So here is an alternative guide for budget eating out, where the quality and freshness of the food is what counts, not the decor and service.
1. Ho Hung Kee Congee and Noodle Wonton Shop
The backalleys of Causeway Bay are a foody's paradise, with the bustling Jardine's Bazaar market to visit, and dozens of outdoor stalls and tiny restaurants to choose from. Ho Hung Kee is the place to discover the delights of congee. This is Chinese porridge, made with rice instead of oats, eaten not just for breakfast but late at night too, flavoured with a weird and wonderful variety of ingredients - anything from fresh crab to fish, hundred year-old eggs to pork and giblets, fermented beancurd to chicken with ginseng. Basically, this is Chinese comfort food, offering a filling, hearty meal for HK$25 (£2.20) a bowl.
• 2 Sharp Street East, Causeway Bay
2. Lin Heung
Hong Kong is the best place in the world to eat Dim Sum, and nothing compares to the experience of lunching at Lin Heung. Opened 70 years ago, this place is always full - and doesn't take reservations. Don't even think of asking the waiter for a table, and copy the locals who stand like vultures behind diners who seem to be near finishing, ready to grab thir seat. Grumpy ladies push ancient metal trolleys filled with delicacies such as succulent pork ribs and chicken's feet, and wizened waiters in scruffy white jackets pour scalding tea out of huge steel kettles. Each dim sum serving costs around HK$15 (£1.35).
• 160 Wellington Street, Central
3. Lamcombe Seafood Restaurant
The ferry boat to one of Hong Kong's outlying islands costs less than the London Underground, and sailing out of the the Bay is an unforgettable experience. Lamma island takes some beating, as you can trek across some wild hilly landscapes and then enjoy a brilliant seafood lunch before jumping back on the ferry. Lamcombe is just one of a dozen restaurants, with dozens of exotic live fish and shellfish exhibited in aquariums. Walk through the kitchen to the secluded outdoor terrace, and while a huge plate of fresh juicy wok-fried chilly clams with rice costs HK$55 (£4.90), a five-course seafood meal for two is worth splashing out on, at HK$368 (£32.60).
• 47 Main Street, Yung Shue Wan, Lamma Island
4. Mak's Noodle
This simple noodle shop is a Hong Kong institution, equally popular with locals and visiting celebrity chefs like Anthony Bourdain. For over a century, three generations of the Mak family have been making what are probably the best wontons and noodles you will ever taste. Their two secrets are the broth- specially cooked each morning with dried shrimp, ground flounder and pork bones; and their noodles- which are made with duck eggs rather than chicken. Try either simple dry noodles sprinkled with prawn roe, or soup of wontons stuffed with saltwater prawns. Dishes HK$25-40.
• 77 Wellington Street, Central
5. Mong Kok Street Stalls
Anyone visiting here with the slightest interest in shopping and eating has to head to the intoxicating neighbourhood of Mong Kok. Come out of the underground station and walk along Dundas Street until you reach the crossroads with the Ladies Market, which is brilliant for bargain shopping. You'll find yourself in the midst of the best and biggest variety of street food in Hong Kong, fighting through crowds of people lining up to buy grilled octopus, crispy calamari, deep-fried smelly tofu, fish and beef balls, and all kinds of weird-looking intestines and tripe, and then greedily eating them on the pavement as soon as they're served. Portions from HK$10 (£0.90)
6. Wang Fu
Wellington Street is another road in the heart of the buzzing Central neighbourhood, choc-a-bloc with restaurants on both sides of the road. Look though the window of Wang Fu and you'll immediately see what this hole-in-the-wall eatery specialises in - dumplings, being handmade and stuffed with twenty different fillings on the spot by the owner. And a bowl of soup filled with these delicious Beijing-style dumplings will only set you back HK$30 (£2.70).
• 102 Wellington Street, Central
7. Kowloon City
This area is a flashback to what Hong Kong was like thirty years ago (i.e. no high-rise buildings) on the site of the city's old airport. Take a tour of Sam Yung, a brilliant food market, while Cheong Fat Restaurant (20 South Wall Road) is the best place in town to sample exquisite Teochew cuisine. But just as tasty and at HK$40 (£3.50) a plate, don't miss the wonderful Char Siu- barbecued pork, chicken or duck- served in an old-fahioned coffee shop, Xi He Leong (63 Carpentar Road), and diced up right in front of you on a butcher's chopping block.
8. Po Lin Yuen Vegetarian Restaurant
Many Chinese are avid vegetarians because of their Buddhist beliefs, and even a gourmet vegetarian feast at a smart restaurant like Kung Tak Lam (7/F, 1 Peking Road, Kowloon) won't cost a fortune. But Po Lin Yuen, is just a simple eatery (lacto-ovo, so the use of dairy and egg products here won't please vegans) where a delicious, healthy lunch of radish pudding, golden mushroom dumplings, taro cake and even vegetarian pig's intestines made from bean curd, won't cost more than HK$50 (£4.40).
• 69 Jervois Street, Central
9. Tak Cheong Noodle
Tin Hau is an up-and-coming neighbourhood in Hong Kong, with hip restaurants like Kin's Kitchen beginning to attract a fashionable clientele that previously would never have ventured this far out of Central. But local food-lovers have been drawn for a long time to Electric Road just to savour the signature Fish Balls soup of Tak Cheong, served Teochew-style with tangy preserved vegetables, and Hor Fun- thick, flat rice noodles - priced at HK$20-30 (£1.80-2.60).
• 75 Electric Road, Tin Hau
10. To Yuen Noodle
Situated smack in the middle of Hong Kong Island's busiest thoroughfare, To Yuen is packed with sharply-dressed business executives at lunchtime, popping out of their towering office blocks for a quick serving of the speciality beef brisket. These tender, tasty morsels of meat are slow-boiled for hours with aromatic Chinese herbs and beef bones, then served in a soup with finely chopped chives and celery, all for around HK$30 (£2.70).
• 138 Queen's Road, Central
