It is said that when a well-loved minister threw himself into the river, many of his followers got on boats and paddled around the river beating drums to expel evil spirits. Many others threw rice dumplings into the river in hopes that the fish would eat the dumplings instead of his body.

With that came the traditions of the dragon boat festival, ones that Hongkongers have kept for nearly 2000 years. Many of the best Chinese restaurants in town have their own versions each year, and here we choose five of our favourites.

Shang Palace at Shangri-La, Kowloon

Shang Palace introduces three flavours – pork, vegetarian and sweet. The most decadent pork-filled rice dumpling features pork belly from chestnut-fed pigs in Spain along with actual chestnuts. The vegetarian option features the luxurious matsutake mushroom along with wild mushrooms and five different beans including red kidney, yellow split and mung. The sweet dumpling features 30-years-aged tangerine peel and sweetened red bean.

Kung Fu Restaurant, Tsim Sha Tsui

Packaged in a cube-shaped box, the famous dim sum restaurant’s dragonboat festival set comes with either savoury or sweet dumplings. The savouries contains pork belly, roast duck, salted egg yolk, lotus seeds, sun-dried scallops, shiitake mushrooms and dried mandarin peel. The sweets come with sweetened glutinous rice, red bean paste and assorted nuts. You can order the hamper that comes with CHALI’s chryanthemum pu’er tea with Deliveroo.

Spring Moon at The Peninsula, Tsim Sha Tsui