Tung Po Sea Food (Cooked Food Center)

Picture a huge fish market, its floors tiled, that is lit by bright, unromantic halogen and filled with large round tables that have little shelves underneath for diners to store their purses and bags (the floors are usually still wet from the day’s fish-selling activities). Add to that large groups of rowdy Hong Kong locals, waitresses dressed in cheerleading outfits and an impresario-maitre d’ who occasionally moonwalks to Michael Jackson and you have the jovial ambience of this dai pai dong, known locally only as the Cooked Food Center. The food is excellent, especially the ultra-fresh seafood dishes, like salt-and-pepper shrimp and stir-fried prawns. For foodies who want to be part of a real local, and somewhat hidden, dining scene (you take an escalator up to the second floor of a nondescript building in North point), the Cooked Food Center is not to be missed.