HKU does not have dining halls as we know them in America where anyone that pays the fee to get in has an all you can eat pass until leaving. Instead, HKU has regular restaurants where students just order what they want and pay for it. There are several places to eat around campus: five restaurants (three of them Chinese and the two others westernized), and many little restaurants or stands like for example Subway.
It seems like there is plenty abundance of food options, but there are actually only a few places where I consider the food to be acceptable to eat every day. The food at the three Chinese restaurants does not taste well and is not healthy and the only restaurant I find okay to eat often, only has six plates and they have not changed in the entire semester. I learned the menus of each university’s restaurant and I try to variate as much as I can but I only feel that I am truly eating well in one of them, so most times I end up eating one of the six plates from that restaurant.
At my dorm (Lee Hysan Hall) there is a dining hall but the food is terrible so I–and I am sure every exchange student based on what I have heard from them–never eat there. The only time in the last month that I ate at the hall’s restaurant was in a monthly event that the hall organizes where all residents have a formal dinner, with very good food for that night. The only aspect that is very positive about HKU’s food is the price. Since the university is public, all restaurants are subsidized, including the Starbucks, which has a 30% discount. Most of the times I end up paying less than $5 USD per meal, nothing compared to the $12.90 USD that cost each lunch at Northeasterns’ dining halls.
There are many very good restaurants, local and westernized, around campus where many students often go. They are obviously more expensive as they do not have the subsidy but they still have a good price, around $12 USD per meal. There are also places with interesting food that I would recommend anyone coming to try them, like for example the snakes’ restaurants that sell snake soup. It is an entire experience to eat them, just getting to the place is very estrange. The owners have the snakes alive so that they stay fresh and this creates a very strong smell in the restaurant, however, the taste of the soup is actually very good, it tastes like chicken.
