618 Shanghai Street: Mong Kok Travel Guide (4.0★)

A Row of Tong Lau That Survived

Look up from the pavement and count the balconies. The building at 618 Shanghai Street is really a terrace of pre-war tong lau, the shophouses built across Kowloon in the 1920s and 1930s. Each one had a shop at street level and living space above it.

Many of their neighbours were knocked down for towers. This stretch was kept instead. The Urban Renewal Authority restored the façades and gave the interiors new commercial uses, and the project took its name from its street number.

Visit for the building first and the shopping second. You get to stand inside a type of architecture that once lined this whole district and now survives in scattered pieces.

Reading the Façade Before You Go In

Cross to the opposite pavement before you go in. From there you can take in the whole terrace at once: repeated bays, deep balconies over the street, and shopfronts set back beneath them. Up close, the narrow width of Shanghai Street hides all of that.

Pay attention to the rhythm of the units. Each bay was a separate property with its own family and trade, and the restored front keeps that one-after-another pattern. Modern towers on either side make the old proportions easy to read. The contrast is the best photograph here.

Then go inside and notice how the old structures meet the newer circulation added to link them. Moving between floors, you can feel where one shophouse ends and the next begins.

Up to the Second Floor

The listed address is the 2/F. Don’t stop at the ground-floor units; take the stairs or lift up. The upper floors are where you best understand the original shophouses, as the old living spaces now hold shops or tables.

What fills those floors depends on the current tenants. Since opening, the block has held a changing mix of restaurants, cafés and small retailers, and leases turn over. Before you plan a meal around a particular name, check the directory posted at the entrance or the venue’s own listing.

Reviews are generally positive and consistently decent. Treat it as a pleasant, slightly unusual stop rather than a destination in its own right.

Getting There From Mong Kok MTR

Mong Kok station is on the Tsuen Wan and Kwun Tong lines. Leave on the western side, towards Argyle Street and Langham Place, and walk west away from Nathan Road. Shanghai Street runs parallel to Nathan Road a few blocks over, and the walk takes roughly five to ten minutes.

For orientation:

• Nathan Road is the wide main road you leave behind as you head west.
• Langham Place, the tall mall on Argyle Street, is a useful landmark near the station.
• Shanghai Street is narrower and lower than the roads around it. Once you’re on it, walk the numbers towards the 600s.

From Yau Ma Tei station you can walk north up Shanghai Street instead. That route takes longer but passes more of the street’s older shops.

Eleven to Eleven

The block keeps the same hours every day of the week: 11am to 11pm, with no closing day. That gives you a lot of room to choose, and the building looks different depending on when you come.

During the day you see the façade in full light, and the balconies cast clear shadows across the bays. In the evening the shopfronts light up from inside and the street fills with Mong Kok’s night traffic.

Because it opens at 11am, it makes an easy lunch stop. It also fits at the end of an evening walk, as long as you get in well before 11pm. Kitchens in individual restaurants may close earlier than the building, so confirm with the tenant you’re heading for.

Moving Through a Restored Shophouse Block

A few habits make the visit smoother:

• Pay the Hong Kong way. An Octopus card or a bank card works in most modern shops and cafés. Keep some cash for smaller traditional shops along the rest of the street.
• Don’t add a tip on top. Hong Kong sit-down restaurants usually put a service charge on the bill. Rounding up is optional, and nobody expects you to leave extra.
• Ask before you photograph inside. The façade is public, but individual shops are private businesses. A quick gesture at your camera is usually enough.
• Expect a wait at peak mealtimes. In Hong Kong restaurants, staff typically seat you, take your party size and may share tables. Wait at the door rather than walking in to claim a seat.
• Use the stairs. The lifts are small and slow in old-structure buildings like this, and walking up lets you see each floor.

Speaking a few words of Cantonese helps but isn’t needed. Staff in Mong Kok are used to visitors who point and smile.

Walking On From Shanghai Street

Most people pair 618 with a walk south, and Shanghai Street makes that easy. The road is one of Kowloon’s oldest. Further down towards Yau Ma Tei you pass traditional kitchenware and restaurant-supply shops: steel woks, bamboo steamers and cleavers stacked to the ceiling.

Other stops within walking distance:

• Temple Street Night Market in Yau Ma Tei, south along the same grid. It comes alive in the evening.
• Ladies’ Market on Tung Choi Street, east across Nathan Road. It’s a long open-air run of stalls.
• Langham Place, back near the MTR, for air-conditioning and a break from the street.

If you come in the evening, see 618 first, then drift south to Temple Street once the stalls are set up. The two show you the same district in very different moods.