Hong Kong-Style French Toast

There is always an open can of condensed milk in my fridge, waiting to be stirred into a cup of black tea or coffee. On weekends, I pour it all over my breakfast: Hong Kong French toast, a peanut butter sandwich I dip into a sweet, eggy custard and deep-fry. Growing up in Hong Kong, it was one of my favorite meals, eaten at any time of day: in the morning, afternoon, and especially at 3 a.m. after a night out. I’m not alone: According to the South China Morning Post, Hong Kongers eat enough French toast each year to cover the circumference of the Earth.

The Cha Chaan Teng (茶餐廳)

Think of Cantonese food, and French toast is unlikely to come to mind. But the dish is a staple at cha chaan tengs (“tea cafés” or Hong Kong-style diners), along with many other Western-style meals like baked pork chop rice and Spam and egg sandwiches. A relic of Hong Kong’s past as a British colony and belonging to a genre of food labeled “soy sauce Western,” these dishes and the cafés that serve them are a unique part of HK’s cuisine and identity: not quite Chinese or British, but somewhere in between.

Tea cafés first emerged in the 1940s as the bing sutt (“ice room”), an establishment that sold chilled Western-inspired beverages and snacks like French toast (which, fun fact, is called “Western toast” or 西多士 in Cantonese). At the time, European food was seen as a luxury and was rarely affordable—or available—to locals. The bing sutt evolved into the cha chaan teng in the 1950s, when they expanded their menus to include lunch and dinner. Since then, they’ve become a part of everyday life in Hong Kong. “With their accessible prices, efficient service, lively atmosphere, and old-school charm,” writes Megan Zhang for Saveur, “the egalitarian establishments are still popular spots today for people from all walks of life to grab a bite or beverage.”

Peek into an old-school cha chaan teng at any given time of day, and you’ll likely see young men in suits slurping a bowl of instant noodles with satay beef or grandparents sipping a cup of hot milk tea as they gossip with the diner’s staff. It’s a local watering hole, where people come together no matter their background. There’s a huge wealth disparity in Hong Kong—one in 14 people are millionaires—and the cha chaan teng might be one of the few places in the world where you’d regularly see a multi-millionaire sitting down to a meal next to regular folks.

Though cha chaan tengs are still heavily frequented establishments, they’re not as ubiquitous as they once were. As many business owners struggle with rising costs, the cha chaan teng has become an endangered institution—making a meal at the remaining old-school cafés an increasingly nostalgic experience that reminds locals of a bygone era.

For those, like me, who no longer live in Hong Kong, the memory is even more bittersweet. Even if there are cha chaan tengs in Chinatowns all over the world, they don’t function in the same way they do in Hong Kong—nor do they carry the same historical and cultural weight.  It may be impossible to reproduce that feeling or space outside of the city, but it isn’t as difficult to recreate the foods that mean so much to us. It took me years to finally learn how to make Hong Kong French toast at home; maybe it was fear of failure or fear of ruining what to me were perfect memories of a dish I so enjoyed as a child. It wasn’t until the pandemic, when I was stuck at home, that I finally mustered the courage to try making it at home.

Tips for Making the Best Hong Kong-Style French Toast

Preparing Hong Kong French toast isn’t hard, but in order to make one worthy of a cha chaan teng, you’ve got to accept several things. First, there’s a lot of oil involved. Traditionally, cooks drop the battered sandwiches into a vat of hot oil and deep-fry it. My recipe below involves shallow-frying for ease and convenience, which recreates the color, flavor, and texture you’d get from deep-frying: an evenly cooked golden brown sandwich with a custardy interior that oozes peanut butter when you slice into it. Sure, you could pan-fry it with butter, but it just isn’t the same. It’s not supposed to taste like the $30 French toast at the fancy brunch place—it’s supposed to taste like it came from a Hong Kong diner, where you’d eat it on a greasy table under fluorescent lights. 

That brings us to the question of bread. You want a loaf that’s soft and sturdy like milk bread, which has a pillowy interior but enough structure to withstand the process of dipping and frying. If you can’t find milk bread, any fluffy white sandwich bread like pain de mie or brioche would work.

Like the cooks at most local cafés in Hong Kong, I’ve opted to use a creamy peanut butter spread here. I’m talking about the stuff that’s been sweetened, salted, and emulsified—not the organic, natural nut butter you might find at a health food store. Cha chaan tengs are diner-type establishments offering cheap, convenient meals, where the ingredients used are usually those that are most affordable and accessible. If your preference is for a different type of peanut butter, please feel free to substitute. It’ll still be delicious, just drastically different from what’s made and served at cha chaan tengs.

While some places will dip the sandwich just in eggs, which produces a vivid yellow French toast, other cafés will use a mixture of eggs, milk, and sugar. I personally enjoy the sweeter version, as the sandwiches dipped in just egg tend to taste slightly more savory. Here, I’ve opted to use Daniel’s ideal ratio for eggs, milk, and sugar from his Perfect Quick-and-Easy French Toast recipe. It’s a tried-and-true formula that results in French toast with a custardy, fluffy interior, and one I’m not about to mess with. I’ve also borrowed another technique he employs in his recipe: oven-drying the bread, which helps it soak up the batter and hold its shape when you fry it.

Once the sandwich is fried, I top it with pats of butter and a generous amount of sweetened condensed milk, just like at a cha chaan teng. Steps like drying out bread and stuffing your French toast with peanut butter might all feel a bit “extra” for French toast, but I guarantee it’ll result in a truly delicious sandwich that’s worthy of even the most old-school cha chaan teng. The only thing missing is the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong—which doesn’t feel so far away as I take my first bite.