If you read my post on cooking in a tiny Hong Kong kitchen, then this hostel kitchen probably looks like a dream. And it was … to a point. It was definitely the most spacious kitchen we’ve used here. But it also had the most cooks wanting to use it. So instead of space, our constraint was time. Still, for our last week in Hong Kong, we were grateful to have the luxury of preparing meals. An unexpected perk was the location in the Tin Wan neighborhood of Aberdeen. The area’s namesake wet market was only the start. The streets overflowed with fruit and vegetable stalls, bakeries and dried goods shops. We were well-supplied for cooking in a hostel kitchen.
The Best Breakfasts Need a Hostel Kitchen
We spent our last week staying in a shared room at the Mojo Nomad. The rate included breakfast. We were lucky to only share the room for three nights of our seven-night stay.
I hadn’t thought too much about the included breakfast when booking. But it turned out to be a nice perk. We rounded the bagel and coffee out with the muesli we carried around plus fresh fruit and eggs from the wet market. Our new morning routine turned out to be the best breakfasts we’ve had on the trip.
Beyond Cooking in a Hostel Kitchen
We didn’t cook dinner every night of our stay, and when we did, we kept it simple. Usually we made steamed rice out of the sticky rice we found in the “free” bin. We added vegetables, and sometimes lentils, tofu or lap cheong (smoked Chinese sausage). The hostel’s rice cooker was essential as the stove was prime real estate.
Yet the crowded dining area during dinner made for fun socializing. The kind of atmosphere that good hostels excel at. Where you can swap stories and get tips from other travelers. And your nomadic life that sounded so crazy at home is normal. In our case, even mundane. Why would we spend a whole month in Hong Kong? Or nine months to only see a handful of countries? It was also a great place to see what others were cooking.
The Mojo hostel was particularly unique in that many of the guests were long-term residents. It is the kind of place that’s simply nice to be. It’s so essential to find these types of spaces when you’re continually on the move.
The nighttime energy was replaced with quiet in the morning. There was a noticeable absence of people. This was the time to savor breakfast and make plans for the day. Oh, and photograph your food.
