Daa Laang

Daa laang refers to a night-time meal in Hong Kong cuisine. First emerging in the 1950s, daa laang includes hot and cold Chiuchow dishes.

Origins
Daa laang originated in Chiuchow and is therefore also called Chiuchow daa laang (潮州打冷). In the 1950s, the cuisine was introduced to Hong Kong by Chiuchow immigrants.

The traditional way to order food is to choose the dish of one's choice in front of a server, who then marks it down for the customers. The daa laang is then made and sent to the table. The traditional repast is expanding outside of Hong Kong and into China, including Shenzhen.

Etymology
The term is Cantonese and originated in Hong Kong. There are several proposed etymologies:


 * 1) In the fiction of the Song and Yuan dynasties, terms such as da tsim  and "da dim"  refer to going to a restaurant for dinner while traveling. Hence, the word daa (打; ) can refer to eating at a restaurant. In the Chiuchow dialect, the word lang means 'people'. Thus, Cantonese refer to the Chiuchow people as lang lo . Over time, lang lo became a slang term, referring to Chiuchow food stalls. Then gradually, the term daa laang referenced dinner at Hong Kong’s Chiuchow stalls.
 * 2) In the 1950s, the sellers carried baskets with poles on their shoulders. They were called basket carriers . The pronunciation of this term in the Chiuchow dialect is similar to daa laang (打冷), so Hongkongers began to call them the daa laangs. The term basket carriers became daa laang (打冷) because the basket carriers would shout the foods they were selling to the buyers. The pier workers in Triangular Pier would shout back "basket carriers". The majority of Hongkongers could not understand it and mistaken the expression basket carriers as daa laang.
 * 3) During that period, many gangs dined and dashed at Hong Kong's Chiuchow stalls. A Chiuchow gang formed in response to watch for the rival gangs. Once they found someone who came for a meal, they would yell "hit them!" to alert others. As daa laang in the Chiuchow dialect sounds like "hit them", people gradually associated daa laang with Chiuchow people.

Dishes
Dishes include a variety of cold cuts and spicy dishes originating from the food stalls in Chiu Chow. Marinated food, seafood, pickled products, and cooked dishes are the four main types of daa laang. One dish is the marinated or Chiu Chow soy-sauce goose.

For pepper and salt fried food served with chili, chefs will first fry the food (usually a light food like tofu or squid) and then re-fry it with pepper and salt.

Popular cold items include iced cockle, made by first boiling and then freezing and served with a sauce made with garlic, sugar, and vinegar, and iced crab, which is first boiled and later frozen.