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Business & Tech

Hong Kong Street Food

A taste of the Orient on Broadway.

The streets of Hong Kong and Millbrae are similar in at least one way: Eggettes.

Since January 2009, the restaurant, located at 979 Broadway, has specialized in making Eggettes – small, sweet waffle-like snacks that are shaped like little chicken eggs and made on the spot with chocolate, coconut or honeydew flavors.

"They're crispy on the outside and soft on the inside," Manager Cheirie Shum said. "When you eat them it's not like a normal waffle and you can taste more of the texture. It's more about the dough and the batter than it is about the chocolate or the strawberry or whatever else is on top of it."

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Shum says the Eggettes recipe is a secret that only one or two people know. Shum herself doesn't even know it.

In China, the word for Eggettes is gai dan jai (pronounced "guy dan j'eye") that translates to little chicken egg. In Hong Kong, street vendors sell Eggettes to cater to people on the go. In Millbrae, Eggettes bring a favorite street food from the old world to the new.

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"People in Hong Kong are on the move a lot and breakfast is not typical. Eggettes is a way to have a waffle-like snack anytime of day," Shum said.

The store offers a modern and hip place to enjoy a little respite from the day with fresh tapioca drinks (the tapioca is made three-four times a day), coffee drinks, and fresh and frozen fruit smoothies and freezes.

"We have drinks like avocado and papaya. We also have freshly made watermelon freezes that are like a smoothie but they don't have milk in them," Shaum said.

Another old-school Chinese favorite is the red bean freeze – a traditional Hong Kong dessert made from blended red beans with chunks of taro, kidney beans and garbanzo beans. The red bean freeze comes as either hot or frozen drink, and it is served exclusively on Friday, Saturday and Sunday,

If having a sweet is not what you're looking for, try the fish Shui Mai, curry fish balls or Chiu Chen Fen, rice rolls served with peanut and hoisin sauce.

The shop also has three computers and offers free internet access. Hong Kong vending machines with Pokemon and Hello Kitty figurines decorate the interior.

Locations:

Millbrae

979 Broadway
Millbrae, CA 94030

(650) 697-6945

South San Francisco (the original)

639 El Camino Real
South San Francisco, CA 94080

(650) 266-9919

San Francisco (2)

3136 Noriega St
San Francisco, CA 94122

(415) 681-8818

2810 Diamond St

San Francisco, CA 94131

(415) 839-5282

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