Canteen Culture and Lore: Lemon Tart, the Thousand-Person Feast, and the Women Workers' Mochi

At CUHK, "Where shall we eat tonight?" has never been a simple question. It pulls in the Medical Faculty's lemon tart, the "struggle meals" at Chung Chi Tang, the red bean ice at Benjamin Franklin Centre, the late-night glow of the Women Workers' Co-op kiosk, and the poon choi shared by a thousand people on New Asia's circular plaza. This piece threads those "food" memories together lightly, looking at how a university built into a hillside has written its own collective memory through its canteens.

# 1. A Map of Famous Dishes: Every Canteen Has Its "Signature"

The items CUHK students call "CUHK treasures" or "CUHK delicacies" are mostly not luxurious fare, but affordable, filling, homestyle dishes that carry each canteen's personality. Drawing on the School of Journalism and Communication's "A Bite of CUHK" feature^※ and word-of-mouth among students:

• Faculty of Medicine · Lemon Tart (Med Can): The chilled lemon tart at the Li Ka Shing Medical Building snack kiosk is described by the JLMC feature as 「遠近馳名,叔叔姨姨都好 nice」 ("famous far and wide; the uncles and aunties are all very nice")^※. Paired with a two-dish rice or breakfast set, it's a favourite for many, costing just HK$20–$40 per head.
• Benjamin Franklin Centre · Red Bean Ice (Coffee Corner): The red bean ice at Coffee Corner, 「滿滿煉奶味」 ("brimming with condensed milk flavour")^※; its dinner menu leans spicy, with deep-fried fish slice thick rice noodles and Vietnamese lẩu vermicelli also being regular orders.
• Chung Chi Tang · "Struggle Meal" (CC Can): The Chung Chi student canteen is dubbed 「選擇多多人任揀!價錢親民夾大件」 ("'So many choices, take your pick! Friendly prices and generous portions'")^※. Siu mei rice and afternoon tea sets are the daily staples, while the brown sugar pearl fresh milk is the "internet-famous" option.
• Lan Yuan · Five-Layer French Toast & Full English Breakfast: Lan Yuan, located beside the Ho Tim Building, takes a Western food approach, its 「五層西多勁大份,記住叫埋 fd 一齊食呀」 ("five-layer French toast is huge — remember to bring a friend to share!")^※. The homemade beef burger is also a signature.
• New Asia · Red Bean Ice, Pineapple Bun, Ham & Egg Sandwich (NA Can): The New Asia Restaurant in the Leung Hung Kee Building follows the Hong Kong-style cha chaan teng template, with French toast and breakfast sets all available.
• Women Workers' Co-op · Homemade Mochi, Taiwanese Sausage (Women Workers' Cooperative): The Women Workers' kiosk in the Benjamin Franklin Centre basement is best loved for its homemade snacks, with prices starting from HK$4^※. According to a student press round-up, its ice creams are considerably cheaper than supermarket chain brands.

Every college canteen also has its "private kitchen specialities" — S.H. Ho College's Sichuan-style mouth-watering chicken, United College's cheese burger curry rice and minced pork rice, Wu Yee Sun College's pan-fried chicken steak, C.W. Chu College's All Day Breakfast, and the halal outlet (Ebeneezer's) kebabs and pizza… This "map of famous dishes" shifts with changes in catering contractors, but the mindset that "every canteen has at least one dish worth making a special trip for" is something shared across generations of CUHK people.

# 2. Milk Cap Teas and "Check-In" Culture: The "Internet-Famous" Generation Hits the Canteens

Over the past decade, a "check-in culture" has quietly woven itself into CUHK canteens — students make special trips not just to eat, but for a photogenic drink with a whimsical name. According to the "A Bite of CUHK" feature^※, this "internet-famous" texture is quite revealing:

• United College's "Happy Corner" (inside UC Can): Specialising in cheese milk cap–style drinks, its signature names are playful enough on their own — 「芝士奶蓋熊貓四季春」「阿拉丁之茶」「大叔奶茶」 ("Cheese Milk Cap Panda Four Seasons Spring", "Aladdin's Tea", "Uncle Milk Tea")^※, priced HK$15–$30. It is United College students' go-to afternoon tea indulgence.
• Chung Chi Tang's "Brown Sugar Pearl Fresh Milk": The Chung Chi struggle-meal canteen has followed the trend, putting brown sugar pearl fresh milk on the menu — a curious pairing of "struggle meal meets internet-famous drink."
• Pong Can (Paper & Coffee): This outlet on the second floor of the Pommerenke Student Centre takes a Japanese route. The student press round-up notes its 「以日式榻榻米佈置」 ("tatami-style Japanese décor")^※, with vegetable rice, slow-cooked pork cartilage, and freshly ground coffee as its selling points, HK$30–$60; using a third-party app to collect points also earns a 10% year-round discount — managing "check-in" and "loyalty points" in one go.
• Royal Park Hotel Residence "Be the Light": According to CU Student Press, this Taiwanese drinks outlet was rated by students as "best milk foam tea in CUHK"^※. (The same round-up also records that it was "suspected of wage arrears"; this is a labour allegation from a single source and belongs in the contractors section, so it is not expanded upon here.)

This "internet-famous" texture reflects a shift in the eating habits of a single generation of students: canteens are no longer just a functional space to "shovel a few bites between lectures" but have also become a social venue for photos, dates, loyalty point collecting, and check-ins. The coexistence of affordable, filling "struggle meals" and meticulously presented milk cap teas on the same menu is a true cross-section of the contemporary CUHK canteen.

# 3. Midnight Snacks: The Few Lights Still On Late at Night in the Mountain City

CUHK is built into a hillside, with its residential halls far from the city centre — the cost of "heading downhill for a late-night snack" is high, so on-campus midnight snacks have evolved into a culture unique to the mountain city. Based on public sources and fresher handbooks:

• Chung Chi Tang Midnight Snacks: Chung Chi Tang serves late-night food. Sources indicate it operates from 9pm to 2am Sunday to Friday (closed Saturdays)^※, with single-person hotpot and four-person chicken pot being midnight favourites.
• The Women Workers' Co-op's "Ever-Burning Lamp": According to a fresher handbook, the Women Workers' kiosk's operating hours stretch as long as 07:30 to 01:30^※ — for students racing against deadlines or revising deep into the night, that light itself is a comfort. CU Student Press has recorded that, upon contract renewal, the cooperative collaborated with student volunteers to run "Special Shifts", where students helped cover the late-night hours, extending its midnight snack service.

The significance of a late-night canteen has never been simply that "there is food to eat." On a campus where missing the last shuttle bus means walking all the way up the hill, a canteen light still burning is a tacit understanding shared among students.

# 4. The Thousand-Person Feast and High Table: Making Shared Meals Into Tradition

If everyday canteens represent "eating apart," then the colleges' large-scale shared meals elevate eating to a ritual.

• New Asia College · Thousand-Person Feast: New Asia's most iconic mass dining event. According to public records, the Thousand-Person Feast is held in New Asia College's circular plaza during the college anniversary period, bringing large numbers of staff, students, and alumni together to share poon choi and watch performances^※. New Asia was founded in 1949 by scholars including Ch'ien Mu, Tang Chun-i, and Chang P'i-chieh, and emphasises the humanistic tradition; the college anniversary falls between Confucius's birthday in September (the statutory Foundation Day) and the school's founding date of 10 October, and includes an "open-air funfair" carnival, the Thousand-Person Feast, and puzzle games^※. A thousand people sharing poon choi at the same table is the most tangible expression of the "New Asia spirit" and college belonging.
• High Table Dinner: Originating from the formal long-table dinners of Oxford and Cambridge residential colleges, this tradition has been incorporated into whole-person education by the various colleges. At Shaw College, for example, High Table Dinner is part of non-formal education under College General Education, inviting speakers to share with students over a formal meal, covering topics from social service and environmental protection to art, mediation, and wine tasting^※. The newer colleges (S.H. Ho, Morningside, C.W. Chu, etc.) have gone further, making High Table Dinner a "mandatory shared meal" that must be attended a certain number of times per academic year — dining, etiquette, and staff-student exchange are deliberately designed as a single package here.

These large-scale shared meals and daily canteens complement each other: the daily canteens address the need to "fill your stomach," while the Thousand-Person Feast and High Table address the need for "belonging." The human warmth inside a poon choi basin and the etiquette along a long table are the chapter written into the dining table by CUHK's collegiate system.

# 5. The Women Workers' Cooperative: A Different Way of Eating Inside a Kiosk

Among all the canteen stories, the Women Workers' kiosk in the basement of Benjamin Franklin Centre is the most singular one — it is not merely a purveyor of mochi and Taiwanese sausages, but an experiment in how "campus resources should be used."

According to the Hong Kong Women Workers' Association, the CUHK Women Workers' United Cooperative was established with the Association's assistance by a group of unemployed women; it was the first cooperative to pioneer the use of university resources, originating from a campaign in 2000 by a CUHK student grassroots concern group to have the kiosk handed over to a grassroots organisation for operation^※. Its mode of operation is fundamentally different from a typical contractor: 「基層互助、女工集體管理、共同決策、公平分工」 ("grassroots mutual aid, collective management by the women workers, shared decision-making, fair division of labour")^※ — there is no boss; pricing, working hours, and what to sell are all decided by the members on a one-person-one-vote basis. According to a HK01 feature, the cooperative's members are mostly middle-aged women rendered unemployed during economic restructuring; they sell twenty to thirty types of snacks — notably popular "tossed noodles" — with generous portions and reasonable prices. Wages are hourly, above the statutory minimum wage, and include annual leave^※.

This small shop also connects the "campus" with "society." The same feature notes that over the years, the cooperative has, through charity sales and other means, voiced solidarity for Kwun Tong cleaners, bar-benders during a labour strike, and CUHK outsourced painters seeking workplace injury compensation, and has also visited cooperatives in South Korea, Taiwan, and mainland China for exchanges^※. For many students, buying a mochi at the Women Workers' kiosk isn't just buying a midnight snack — it's an act of identification with "a different way of eating."

Its contract renewals have never been smooth sailing — every few years it faces the hurdle of the university's open tender process, and more than once it has nearly been lost. That fuller, more tension-filled storyline is reserved for the "Contractors: Outsourcing and Monopoly Controversies" piece in this module. In this "Canteen Culture" article, what we remember is the light still on late into the night, and the human warmth — HK$4 a portion — handed over by the "uncles and aunties" behind the counter.

# 6. Price Memories: Generations of "Cheap, Good, and Satisfying"

There is an unspoken thread running through CUHK canteen culture, and that is price. In students' collective memory, the canteens are endearing precisely because they are cheap: a meal at Med Can for just over HK$20, a HK$4 snack at the Women Workers', a HK$18 meal^※ at United College's student price, the generous and affordable struggle meals at Chung Chi Tang… These figures shift with inflation and changes in contractors, yet they have forged a shared expectation that "CUHK canteens should be down-to-earth."

And precisely because this expectation runs so deep, talk of "price hikes," "chain-ification," and "it's more expensive and worse now" repeatedly strikes a nerve — which only goes to show that, in the hearts of CUHK people, a canteen has never been just a "place to eat." It is a part of mountain-city life, a carrier of identity and emotion. Inside the price of a two-dish rice is packed the memory of several generations toward this university.

Further reading: The Mountain City's Canteen System, Contractors: Outsourcing and Monopoly Controversies, Accommodation, Hall Culture, and College Traditions.