Winter in Hong Kong - Snake Soup

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Every year when winter comes to Hong Kong one of the most traditional and enjoyable pleasures for a foodie like me is to go to one of old snake restaurants that seem not to have changed since the 40's and order a delicious hot bowl of incredibly thick "Seh Gan" (Seh means snake and Gan refers to a kind of soup which is much more thick than typical Chinese soup).



Snake soup restaurants are generally easy to spot as they typically have a glass case at the front of the shop filled with living snakes still crawling around in it. Some of them may also have a cage of large geckos and occasionally a glass jar filled with alcohol and preserved rat bodies. I don't advise looking too closely at this if they have it, since it is unlikely to increase the enjoyment of your meal.



The snake soup is always served with several traditional accompaniments, white pepper, crispy Chinese crackers and a type of Chinese herb with a strong grassy flavour whose name I have not yet been able to identify. Once the steaming hot soup arrives you sprinkle it with the herbs, shake over a generous helping of white pepper and throw over some of the deliciously crunchy crackers, then mix it all up with your spoon.



Once you take your first mouthful of soup it is not just the flavours that you will experience, but the wide variety of textures. Hot thick soup, slippery Chinese mushrooms, chunky snake meat, soft snake innards and crispy crackers. A sort of mini adventure for your mouth.

And for tastes? Dense, warming soup lightened by the slight sharpness of the pepper, a subtle yet strong and peristent grassy flavour from the herbs, light crispiness of the crackers and a rich yet not heavy flavour from the snake, somewhere between chicken and pork. If the Seh Gan is good, then expect the pieces of snake meat to be fair sized and the soup to be quite stuffed with ingredients.



There are many places to get snake soup in Hong Kong and the price is usually reasonable, anywhere from $15 - $30 hk dollars typically. One of my personal favourite locations is a very old one on Queen's Road West in the Sai Ying Pun region; somewhere around the 300 number, halfway between Sheung Wan & Kennedy Town.