The King Wah Centre (), situated at the northeast corner of

Shantung Street Shantung Street () is a street in Mong Kok, Kowloon in Hong Kong. It spans from Ferry Street in the west to Yim Po Fong Street in the east. Features Major landmarks including Langham Place and Macpherson Playground are situated along the str ...

and Nathan Road, is a popular

shopping centre A shopping center (American English) or shopping centre ( Commonwealth English), also called a shopping complex, shopping arcade, shopping plaza or galleria, is a group of shops built together, sometimes under one roof. The first known colle ...

in the

Mong Kok Mong Kok (also spelled Mongkok, often abbreviated as MK) is an area in Kowloon, Hong Kong. The Prince Edward subarea occupies the northern part of Mong Kok. Mong Kok is one of the major shopping areas in Hong Kong. The area is characterised ...

area of

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

. The 16-storey building features ten restaurant floors, three karaoke floors, along with 136 stores selling a variety of fashionable products.

History

King Wah Restaurant

In 1955, ‘The king of dim sum restaurants’ Tan Jienan (), who was from Foshan and once operated Taotaoju () in

Guangzhou Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kon ...

, opened King Wah Restaurant. The floor area of the five storey building was approximately and used for banquets hosting more than 150 diners. It was a landmark of Mong Kok at the time and served different segments of society on each of its five floors: * 1/F was bakery with

spittoon A spittoon (or spitoon) is a receptacle made for spitting into, especially by users of chewing and dipping tobacco. It is also known as a cuspidor (which is the Portuguese word for "spitter" or "spittoon", from the verb "cuspir" meaning "to s ...

in the store that served grassroots * 2/F was a Western restaurant * 3/F was a Chinese tea housewith carpets (); * 4/F was a Chinese wine house ()with waiters serving customers with towels, and asked customers for tips; * 5/F was a nightclub that served the upper class. An unwritten tradition was that on horse racing days, gamblers would eat homemade

Sachima Sachima is a sweet snack in Chinese cuisine made of fluffy strands of fried batter bound together with a stiff sugar syrup, and of an appearance somewhat similar to American Rice Krispies Treats. It originated in Manchuria and is now popular thr ...

at 20 to 30% discount there. The commonly known name of

() is the

pun A pun, also known as paronomasia, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use of homophoni ...

of “horse” in Cantonese, thus gamblers believed that after they have eaten it, they would win at horse racing (“食完馬仔，贏馬仔” ). During each year's Mid-Autumn Festival a large advertisement for moon cake would be displayed outside the restaurant. The restaurant closed in 1989.

King Wah Centre

The current building cost two hundred million

Hong Kong dollars The Hong Kong dollar (, sign: HK$; code: HKD) is the official currency of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. It is subdivided into 100 cents or 1000 mils. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority is the monetary authority of Hong Kong and ...

to build. It housed a Wing On department store in the 1990s. When that store closed the building was taken over by small independent shops selling popular clothing and

accessories Accessory may refer to: * Accessory (legal term), a person who assists a criminal In anatomy * Accessory bone * Accessory muscle * Accessory nucleus, in anatomy, a cranial nerve nucleus * Accessory nerve In arts and entertainment * Accessory ...

aimed primarily at teenage customers. The new shopping centre was colloquially referred to as "Red Spot" () as the building's sign used to feature a distinctive red spot, now covered up by other signage.

A new tenant

In June 2013, all 130 original tenants moved out of King Wah Centre, which was taken over by the Sincere Department Store, one of the oldest local department stores in Hong Kong. Other bidders for the property included the American clothing brand Forever 21. The rent will be in a monthly rate of HKD $6,000,000 and $200 per square feet with a rental period of 10 years. The Sincere shop in Grand Century Place () is currently undergoing refurbishment and is expected to be much smaller in size after the renovation, and Sincere found that King Wah Centre would a perfect location for Sincere to expand their business further in the same district. Local citizens have criticized the loss of small businesses associated with this takeover.

Floors

*B/F is the basement where there are photo sticker machines for people to take photos. *G/F is the ground floor which is leased out to Chow Sang Sang. *UG - 3/F is the Sincere department store. *5 - 16/F feature Japanese, Korean and Western restaurants.

References

External links

* {{Shopping centres in Hong Kong Mong Kok Shopping centres in Hong Kong