Bing sutt () is a type of traditional cold drinking house started in

Guangzhou Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kon ...

(Canton) that spread to

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

. These bing sutts arose in the 1950s and 1960s. They are characterized by old furniture and settings such as the small tiled floors, hanging fans, folding chairs and so on. A bing sutt provides light meals and drinks and is neighbourhood-oriented. It is believed to be the predecessor of the

cha chaan teng ''Cha chaan teng'' (; "tea restaurant"), often called a Hong Kong-style cafe or diner in English, is a type of restaurant that originated in Hong Kong. Cha chaan teng are commonly found in Hong Kong, Macau, and parts of Guangdong. Due to the ...

Change

There were several bing sutts in Canton from 1970 to 1990s. However, most of them have closed now. Since

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, the dietary culture of Hong Kong became westernized. That was also the time when bing sutts started to become popular and created localized western menus to keep Hong Kong-style restaurants alive. Bing sutts hit the height of their popularity in the 1950s to 1960s. Traditional bing sutts only provide drinks and localized western snacks. Although serving western menus, they keep the price low and thus become popular among people from various social statuses. Yet along with the development of

s, chained

fast food Fast food is a type of mass-produced food designed for commercial resale, with a strong priority placed on speed of service. It is a commercial term, limited to food sold in a restaurant or store with frozen, preheated or precooked ingredien ...

shops and coffee shops, which sell a larger variety of food, bing sutts became less competitive. In the 1980s, many had no choice but to refine the traditional menus by adding

rice Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima ''Oryza glaberrima'', commonly known as African rice, is one of the two domesticated rice species. It was first domesticated and grown i ...

and

noodles Noodles are a type of food made from unleavened dough which is either rolled flat and cut, stretched, or extruded, into long strips or strings. Noodles are a staple food in many cultures (for example, Chinese noodles, Filipino noodles, Indo ...

so as to increase their competitiveness. In 1980s, the cold drink market in Guangzhou ushered in a large number of new frozen foods. These new inventions helped bing sutt regain its popularity. In 1990s, most bing sutt mainly served to

tong sui ''Tong sui'' (; ), also known as ''tim tong'', is a collective term for any sweet, warm soup or custard served as a dessert at the end of a meal in Cantonese cuisine. ''Tong sui'' are a Cantonese specialty and many varieties are rarely f ...

milk Milk is a white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfed human infants) before they are able to digestion, digest solid food. Immune factors and immune ...

coconut milk Coconut milk is an opaque, milky-white liquid extracted from the grated pulp of mature coconuts. The opacity and rich taste of coconut milk are due to its high oil content, most of which is saturated fat. Coconut milk is a traditional food i ...

, tortoise jelly, and other sorts of desserts. Others served dishes such as cake, fried

dumplings Dumpling is a broad class of dishes that consist of pieces of dough (made from a variety of starch sources), oftentimes wrapped around a filling. The dough can be based on bread, flour, buckwheat or potatoes, and may be filled with meat, ...

, soup, glutinous rice,

lunch boxes A lunch box (alt. spelling lunchbox) refers to a hand-held container used to transport food, usually to work or to school. It is commonly made of metal or plastic, is reasonably airtight and often has a handle for carrying. In the United ...

, snacks, bread, congee, etc. In the summer, a small number of bing sutt would also serve

ice cream Ice cream is a sweetened frozen food typically eaten as a snack or dessert. It may be made from milk or cream and is flavoured with a sweetener, either sugar or an alternative, and a spice, such as cocoa or vanilla, or with fruit such as str ...

, and cold drinks. In Guangzhou, bing sutt became a large part of people's lives. Gradually there emerged the “Four Great Bing Sutt”; it included the Shun Kee Bing, Mei Lei Kyun Bing Sutt, Sunshine Bing Sutt, and Emperor Bing Sutt (there also the Rainbow Bing Sutt and the Heung Kwan Bing Sutt). As of today only the Shun Kee Bing Sutt still exists. The Mei Lei Kyun Bing Sutt has been brought under the

Tai Ping Koon Restaurant Tai Ping Koon Restaurant (TPK, ) is a restaurant in Hong Kong. In 2018 it had four restaurants there. Chris Dwyer of the '' South China Morning Post'' described it as "one of the world’s oldest continually operating Chinese restaurants". Histo ...

. With only a few dozen traditional bing sutts are still operating, with some others opened by the younger generation fascinated by the nostalgic atmosphere of the Hong Kong style restaurant. Realizing consumers’ desire to take a glimpse of memories, quite a number of

chains set up and adorn their unique experimental concept stores like bing sutts to attract customers. These newly established bing sutts are usually decorated with characterized furniture and settings such as the small

tile Tiles are usually thin, square or rectangular coverings manufactured from hard-wearing material such as ceramic, stone, metal, baked clay, or even glass. They are generally fixed in place in an array to cover roofs, floors, walls, edges, or o ...

floors, hanging fans,

folding chairs A folding chair is a type of folding furniture, a light, portable chair that folds flat or to a smaller size, and can be stored in a stack, in a row, or on a cart. It can be combined with a folding table. Uses Folding chairs are generally used ...

and so on, all that remind people of the old days. Some of them have become iconic tourist attractions as well. Hong Kong's Bing sutt appeared in the 1960s by imitating a high-end western restaurant offering cheap Western-style light meals to cater to the needs of the working class. There are called coffee shops, tea ice rooms, ice halls, cafes, ice shop cake shops, tea ice halls. After the 1960s, the civilian population began to be sold. The Hong Kong Ice Room was originally a snack and was not a staple food. The Hong Kong restaurant licenses were divided into two types: "Ordinary Restaurant" and "Small Food Restaurant": "Ordinary Restaurant" can sell any food. "Small food restaurants" can only sell foods of the specified combination Most of the ice rooms that do not sell staple foods have been degraded from the 1980s to the 1990s. The remaining ice rooms refer to the operation of tea restaurants and sell more types of food. As of 2007, there were only about 100 operations in the name of the ice room, most of which opened in the 1960s to the early 1970s.

Foods and drinks

Drinks

HK Sheung Wan Wing Lok Street deep fried butter bread French toast Aug-2012

Red bean ice Red bean ice is a drink commonly found in Hong Kong. It is usually served in restaurants like ''cha chaan teng''. It is a popular dessert in the summer. The standard ingredients include adzuki beans, light rock sugar syrup, and evaporated milk. ...

(a drink mixed with red beans, light rock

sugar syrup Inverted sugar syrup, also called invert syrup, invert sugar, simple syrup, sugar syrup, sugar water, bar syrup, syrup USP, or sucrose inversion, is a syrup mixture of the monosaccharides glucose and fructose, that is made by hydrolytic sacc ...

and

evaporated milk Evaporated milk, known in some countries as "unsweetened condensed milk", is a shelf-stable canned cow’s milk product where about 60% of the water has been removed from fresh milk. It differs from sweetened condensed milk, which contains adde ...

) * Yuanyang (a mixture of

coffee Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulant, stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world. S ...

and

tea Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured or fresh leaves of ''Camellia sinensis'', an evergreen shrub native to East Asia which probably originated in the borderlands of southwestern China and north ...

) *

Coffee Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulant, stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world. S ...

(either instant or powder form) *

Fruit punch The term punch refers to a wide assortment of drinks, both non-alcoholic and alcoholic, generally containing fruits or fruit juice. The drink was introduced from the Indian subcontinent to England by employees of the East India Company in the ...

Hong Kong-style milk tea Hong Kong-style milk tea is a tea drink made from Ceylon tea, black tea and milk (usually evaporated milk and condensed milk). It is usually part of lunch in Hong Kong tea culture. Hongkongers consume approximately a total of 900 million gl ...

(black tea mixed with

condensed milk Condensed milk is cow's milk from which water has been removed (roughly 60% of it). It is most often found with sugar added, in the form of ''sweetened condensed milk'' (SCM), to the extent that the terms "condensed milk" and "sweetened condens ...

)

Pastry

*Hong Kong style

swiss roll A Swiss roll, jelly roll (United States), roll cake, cream roll, roulade or Swiss log is a type of rolled sponge cake filled with whipped cream, jam, or icing. The origins of the term are unclear; in spite of the name "Swiss roll", the cake i ...

(standard cake layer with

whipped cream Whipped cream is liquid heavy cream that is whipped by a whisk or mixer until it is light and fluffy and holds its shape, or by the expansion of dissolved gas, forming a firm colloid. It is often sweetened, typically with white sugar, and ...

) *

Paper wrapped cake Paper wrapped cake () is a type of Chinese cake. It is one of the most common pastries served in Hong Kong. It can also be found in most Chinatown bakery shops. In essence, it is a chiffon cake baked in a paper cup. In the bakeries of Chinatown ...

(

chiffon cake A chiffon cake is a very light cake made with vegetable oil, eggs, sugar, flour, baking powder, and flavorings. Being made with vegetable oil, instead of a traditional solid fat such as butter or shortening, it is easier to beat air into the batt ...

baked in a paper cup) *Fruit tart *

Croissant A croissant is a buttery, flaky, Austrian viennoiserie pastry inspired by the shape of the Austrian kipferl but using the French yeast-leavened laminated dough. Croissants are named for their historical crescent shape, the dough is layered wi ...

Pineapple bun A pineapple bun () is a kind of sweet bun predominantly popular in Hong Kong and also common in Chinatowns worldwide. Despite the name, it does not traditionally contain pineapple; rather, the name refers to the look of the characteristic top ...

with butter *

Egg tart The egg tart (; ) is a kind of custard tart found in Chinese cuisine derived from the English custard tart and Portuguese pastel de nata. The dish consists of an outer pastry crust filled with egg custard. Egg tarts are often served at dim sum ...

Toast and sandwiches

Toast Toast most commonly refers to: * Toast (food), bread browned with dry heat * Toast (honor), a ritual in which a drink is taken Toast may also refer to: Places * Toast, North Carolina, a census-designated place in the United States Books * '' ...

with butter *

Sandwiches A sandwich is a food typically consisting of vegetables, sliced cheese or meat, placed on or between slices of bread, or more generally any dish wherein bread serves as a container or wrapper for another food type. The sandwich began as a po ...

* French toast (called “Western Toast” in Chinese, transliteration of French toast) *

Shrimp Shrimp are crustaceans (a form of shellfish) with elongated bodies and a primarily swimming mode of locomotion – most commonly Caridea and Dendrobranchiata of the decapod order, although some crustaceans outside of this order are refer ...

French toast

Other dishes

* Macaroni in broth with

fried egg A fried egg, also known as sunny-side up is a cooked dish made from one or more eggs which are removed from their shells and placed into a frying pan and fried. They are traditionally eaten for breakfast in many countries but may also be serv ...

and

sausage A sausage is a type of meat product usually made from ground meat—often pork, beef, or poultry—along with salt, spices and other flavourings. Other ingredients, such as grains or breadcrumbs may be included as fillers or extenders. ...

*Swiss sauce chicken wings * Instant noodles *

Rice Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima ''Oryza glaberrima'', commonly known as African rice, is one of the two domesticated rice species. It was first domesticated and grown i ...

served in dishes (served with sauce)

Difficulties

Bing sutts have been facing difficulties in remaining in this modern city. The reason why the bing sutt is diminishing is changes in society, be it the change in tastes of consumers or the rise of the

. Most of the bing sutts encounter keen competition among

s with heavy rent. The popularity of

s has taken many customers away from bing sutts, leading to many traditional ones being eliminated from the market and leaving behind no more than twenty bing sutts in Hong Kong.Tai, S. K. (n.d.). Combination of modern and traditions bing sutts in hong kong are never dying. Retrieved fro

http://sanpoyan.journalism.hkbu.edu.hk/?p=857

References

{{Reflist

External links

*

'Brief introduction to Starbucks Bing Sutt corner from Starbucks Coffee, Starbucks '' *

'Detail menu of Lim Kee Bing Sutt from

OpenRice OpenRice () is a food and restaurant guide website that operates in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Japan, Macau, Mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand. History Initially launched for Hong Kong (with the Traditional C ...

'' Hong Kong cuisine Cantonese cuisine Restaurants in Hong Kong