The best Hong Kong style French Toast is in New York City’s Chinatown

What separates Hong Kong French toast from not-actually-French French Toast? Several things. 

For one, it’s commonly made with milk bread rather than a baguette, a rustic loaf or even basic white sliced bread. This is important because milk bread is awesome. It’s already slightly sweetened, it eels like a pillow, it has a buttery taste, and it fries up like a cloud on a hot summer day.

Hong Kong French toast comes with a variety of toppings, stuffings, and sauces, from syrup and butter, to honey and condensed milk, to custard and chocolate. But it really has no limits. Ice cream, bubble tea, sweet potato, salted egg – honestly, if it sounds good to you, shove it in there. (Words I don’t recommend living by.)  

Ready to give Hong Kong French Toast a try? 

Here are 3 of our favorite haunts in the very heart of New York City’s Chinatown. But, if you want a couple more suggestions to really blow the buttons off your pants:

1. M Star Cafe

If you’re looking for an old school style Hong Kong diner, this is where you go. And this is an important connection, because Hong Kong diners were the places that helped put Hong Kong style French toast on the map. The best part about M Star Cafe is that they take bread in its simplest altered form – toast – and ramp it up to ever-increasing levels of amazing. Plain toast, to  butter toast, to French toast, to mini French toast, and to the final boss of french toasts: tuna French toast. Yeah. It’s like a tuna melt, but wrapped in milk bread, and deep fried. Good thing edibles are legal. 

2. Potluck Club

This Cantonese-American spot is an epic visit for just about anything on the menu, dinner or brunch. But, their French toast is nothing short of diabolical, in the best of ways. Salted egg yolk, condensed milk, and culture butter adorn their fried bread and make for a sweet and savory punch-for-brunch. Pair their condensed milk-soaked French toast with some Bolo Bao milk toast, and wash it down with some milk tea or coffee milk tea. This is not an ad by Big Milk. But it is a warning if you’re lactose intolerant.    

At this point, you might be wondering, how the hell did French Toast end up in Hong Kong, and how did it become unique to Hong Kong? Buckle up, because things get wild. 

The earliest versions of a dish resembling modern French Toast were made in Ancient Rome, where it was known as Pan Dulcis (or, sweet bread).

Over time, Pan Dulcis spread throughout Europe and became a popular dish in France. If there’s one thing the French hate, it’s the English. If there’s a second thing they hate, it’s wasting bread. So, the French devised a dish now called Pain Perdu (or, lost bread) to use stale bread that would otherwise be tossed to the birds.

The French decided to invade England back in 1066, presumably because they were a little bored and needed something to do. This turned the British Isles into a less-French-but-still-kind-of-French version of France run by French people. (Do not use this information for your history exam). 

The British eventually retook control of their islands, but a leftover variation of Pain Perdu remained and became colloquially known as French Toast. The British later took that dish to North America where it evolved into the dish that we Americans enjoy today. 

A little later, the British decided that they wanted to bring French Toast to Hong Kong as a gesture of peace and collaboration and accidentally ended up ruling over the island as a colony for 150 years in the process. Whoops. 

French Toast became a staple dessert in higher-end hotel restaurants in Hong Kong. Street vendors tried to replicate the dish, but didn’t have access to the ingredients or the cutlery required to make it. They started making an adapted street-style version accessible to everyone.

Some years later, immigrants from Hong Kong made their way to New York City, settled in Chinatown, and brought their French Toast with them. 

Today, we get to enjoy Hong Kong French Toast in Chinatown in New York City via Ancient Rome via France via England via Hong Kong. Try to keep up. 

In many ways, Hong Kong French Toast combines the very best of American French Toast, English Bread pudding, French crepes, East Asian techniques and ingredients, street food ingenuity, and universally admired gluttony. 

We can all toast to that. And it’s more important than ever to support the people who make Chinatown shine, at the risk of losing a cultural gem. So get out there and suck down some Hong Kong French toast!

Plenty more sweets and treats where that came from…