Hong Kong is a destination where shopping may be king, but where eating is at least the first-born prince. Hong Kong, as with many major Asian cities, is a great dining destination because one can have as unique and outstanding a dining experience sitting at a local roadside/street market food stall as you can at a gourmet restaurant. Although the range of Chinese cuisines runs the gamut in Hong Kong, traditional Hong Kong Chinese food is Cantonese in origin. Cantonese foods tend to be less spicy in general, as Chinese food goes, with some of the primary cooking styles being roasting and braising foods. Roast goose or duck and Peking duck are staple products at many of the city's finest restaurants. Seafood is also abundantly found. Expect to pay for it, though, as the best seafood tends to be of the gourmet variety. Some of the seafood delicacies of note include shark's fin (cooked in many various ways, including the famous shark's fin soup), abalone, oysters, and various fish. If you want to stay away from the most exotic types of seafood, at least try some traditional seafood. Whole steamed fish would be my suggestion.

The ultimate, not-to-be-missed dining experience in Hong Kong, though, is dim sum. For those of you who don't know what this is, it is a style of dining typically available at certain restaurants between 11:00 am and 3:00 pm, but which is sometimes available at certain restaurant in more extended hours in the middle of the day. The best way to think of it is as Chinese tapas, small plates that include various foods cooked in different styles, steamed, braised, pan-fried, roasted. Local favorites include the very traditional chicken feet steamed in black bean sauce and braised tripe, although the less adventurous will find less daunting choices, such as steamed shrimp dumplings (ha gao), pork shu mai, barbecue pork buns (cha siu bao), among others. The larger dim sum places will have 30-60 choices of different delicacies or more. The traditional way of ordering it involves waitresses pushing trollies around, and you simply point to what you want. You can alternatively pencil in your order on a pre-printed order form at many dim sum places, though, that often have English translations on them. Some dim sum places have foregone the trollies, and ordering by paper is the only way you can order. Three of my favorites are the Serenade Restaurant on the Kowloon side, in the Hong Kong Cultural Center (adjacent to the Space Museum and the Art Museum),  which affords views of Victoria Harbour, the Metropolitan Restaurant in the United Centre adjacent to Pacific Place Mall in the Central District, and the venerable, historic Luk Yu Teahouse in the heart of the Central District on a small side street. The latter two are two of the places where the locals go, always a good sign. Try more than one place, Hong Kong is famous for its dim sum. Another favourite for dim sum is Maxim's (it's one of the biggest and most reliable local chains), and the branch at City Hall (Central) is popular among visitors and locals alike, who come for the fab views, more English-speaking staff and good old-fashioned dim sum trolleys, so you can ask the servers to open each basket in the trolley to see what each plate looks like before deciding.

If Chinese food is not your thing, there are other choices for dining available. Unexcitingly, the best tend to be located in the major luxury hotels. There are good choices for French food and Italian cuisine.

Hong Kong is increasingly attracting branches of international culinary megastars, such as Nobu, Alain Ducasse's Spoon (both at the Intercontinental Hotel, Tsim Sha Tsui), Megu (Elements, Kowloon), L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon (Central).

A fine dining experience in Hong Kong is Opia at the Jia boutique Hotel and Apartments.  It was once named as one of the top five new restaurants in the world by "Wallpaper" magazine. A young Australian chef, (protege of Melburnian Teage Ezard) Dane Clouston is at the helm. 

Be reminded, however, that contrary to popular belief, Hong Kong is not cheap. Especially if you're going for fine dining, think NYC prices.