Cha's

Area: Cha's is on the first floor of 30 Sinan Lu, a two-story former factory that's recently been redeveloped into an F&B hub. It counts new dessert and cocktail lounge Hof, the latest Ginger Indochine, and jazz and wine lounge Brick as neighbors. The whole shebang is a yellow-plastered, white-trimmed building half a block south of the intersection with Huaihai Lu, and it's been real busy lately, popping these new places out in quick succession.

That's just the physical location, though. Cha's actual location is Hong Kong, circa the late '50s, early 60s. That's pre-BL, (Bruce Lee), if that's the shameful touchstone of your Hong Kong history.

What it is: Cha's is a brilliantly unabashed dedication to, and faithful recreation of, the old-time Hong Kong cha canting. Cha cantings are basically the Cantonese version of a diner, doing greasy Canto classics late into the night. Xinwang and Bi Feng Tang, Changle Lu's refuges of the drunk and out-too-late, are both modern versions, and Shanghai's new branch of HK old-timer Tsui Wah is the diamond-encrusted, vulgar Hollywood apex/nadir of the entire cha canting genre.

Cha's isn't having any of that. They are gloriously retro, down to the 1950's Hong Kong public lavatory signs and rotary phone in the corner.

Apparently, these details make old-time Cantonese weep with nostalgia for memories of their first dates, and how when you used to go to a cha canting way back when, before mobile phones, one of the big treats was getting to use the house phone for three minutes. Basically, Cha's is the equivalent of a gleaming silver, Airstream diner with salty waitresses and Elvis on the jukebox, for our friends down south.

The owner is a producer of film and commercials and he's gone to frustrating lengths to turn Cha's into a veritable set piece, hunting down vintage drinks coolers in southern Guangdong and grandma-patterned tableware from old factories in Chaozhou. It's great.

Atmosphere: Hong Kong before the IFC, the mid-levels escalator, the malls of TST, Edison Chen.... Atmosphere? Cha's is soaked in it. Even if, like me, you're not 45+, from Hongkers, and able to catch all the references, you'll probably be charmed by it. Here's a bunch of things I liked, or couldn't put my finger on and subsequently had pointed out to me: the old-style drink case stocked with glass bottles of Coke and 7UP that cools by circulating cold water, not air, around the beverages; the sticker on the front of the case for Green Spot, a long-gone orange soda brand; 50's and 60's pop soundtrack; the thin iron legs that support the stiff booths; the faux-marble-looking padding on the booths themselves; the tiny green-and-white tile floor, same as the one in some important scene of a Wong Kar-Wai movie; the diamonds of stained glass; the faux-50's public lavatory signs marking the bathroom; the staff in formal black and white; the menu in those pesky but beautiful traditional characters.

The food does the same trick. There's all those post-war fusion oddities -- instant noodles with luncheon meat, rice with chicken a la king, stewed spaghetti -- but they're a dusty sideshow to Cha's excellent, greasy spoon Canto food. Honestly, they probably didn't need to give a damn about the food, but they have, and of the gang of dishes I had last night -- splendid stir-fried beef hefen, braised pork belly with preserved vegetable, delicate turnip cake with XO sauce, roasted chicken in soy sauce, abalone and chicken rice with mushroom -- only a gloopy curry stood out for being disappointing. The rest? Real nice. This isn't the kind of food that blows your mind, but it is the kind of stuff you want to eat two, three, four times a week and a noticeable step up from the other cha cantings in town.

You know what they did in the '50s? They cooked real food.

Damage: Not expensive. Not nearly expensive. Drinks -- milk tea, 7UP with salted lemon, boiled Coke with ginger, almond milk -- all clock in under 15rmb, and except for a few premium things like abalone rice or goose webs, there's barely anything above 40rmb on the entire menu.

Dinner for two? Somewhere around 120 or 140rmb? You could do cheaper, too, and for lunch, it's easily under 50rmb.

Who's Going: Well, you'd expect a bunch of older, nostalgic Cantonese, and there are a few, but last night at least, it was mostly locals in their mid-twenties, early thirties. But really, it should and will be anyone looking for unfussy Canto diner stuff, and judging by how packed the other cha cantings in town get, that means just about everyone.