Dai pai dong

Common card · No. 414906

A dai pai dong is a type of open-air food stall associated with Hong Kong. The Cantonese name means "big licence stall", referring to the unusually large licences issued to such vendors. Although the term is commonly used more broadly for roadside food stalls, in legal usage it applies only to stalls holding these "big licences". Dai pai dong are associated with informal, inexpensive dining, traditionally operating in open-air premises and serving food cooked quickly in woks. The Hong Kong government stopped issuing new "big licences" in 1956 and subsequently restricted their transfer. From the 1970s, many stalls were moved into markets and cooked food centres, and a government licence-buyback programme introduced in 1983 contributed to a rapid decline in the number of traditional street stalls. The disappearance of dai pai dong has prompted efforts to preserve them as part of Hong Kong's food culture.

Read on Wikipedia · Image K.C. Tang, CC BY-SA 3.0