The Fife-based couple winning prizes for their incredible Japanese Korean street food

Scottish Street Food Awards

This year, the annual Scottish Street Food Awards took place at The Pitt, down at its new home in Granton.

Its shortlist of nine contestants presented their wares to a team of insatiable judges, who’d all obediently skipped lunch. Among others, they included head chef of Heron, Sam Yorke; The List’s food and drink editor, Jo Laidlaw, the founder of the British Street Food Awards, Richard Johnson, and yours truly.

After feasting on dishes including garlicky pizza, vegan fried chicken and tamales, there were a couple of dishes that shone, and made for one clear winner, who was announced on June 22.

It was Fife-based Smoked Tamago, who will go on to the British Street Food Awards in London. In second place was Dumpling Mama, with a joint third going to Oven Pizza and Firebowl, who also took home the People’s Choice Award.

We asked Vinnci Cheung — half of the couple behind Smoked Tamago — to tell us more about their business.

How do you feel about your win?

We were honestly so excited and overwhelmed, it felt unreal and there were loads of happy tears popping out for 24 hours after. All the other finalists were incredibly talented and many of them are professional chefs with exceptional cooking skills. Compared to them, we still have a lot to learn. But what we focused on was balance - creating dishes where flavour, aroma, and presentation come together in harmony. We were truly overjoyed when the judges unanimously chose us for the champion — it was an honour that means a lot to us. We also wanted to thank the 2023 Scottish and British Street Foods Awards Champion — Choola. We ran into them a couple of months ago, when we first sent in our application, and they have been our Wikipedia for information ever since. They not only shared their experience, but have been our emotional support as the competition has been quite intense.

Tell us more about Smoked Tamago

Smoked Tamagoyaki started in Hong Kong back in 2016. It all began with a funny and sweet moment — one night, my fiancee, business partner and chef, Rick, suddenly decided to make tamagoyaki, which is my favourite food, to cheer me up. But the first version he made turned out terrible. Instead of giving up, he spent the next three months testing over and over again and probably eating over a hundred pieces of really terrible tamagoyaki, until he came up with this perfect recipe. That’s when he knew it was good enough to share with others and he could open the first tamagoyaki specialist shop in Hong Kong.

Tell us more about your signature dishes and what's special about them?

Our signature dish, tamagoyaki, is a traditional Japanese dish. It’s a sweeter, fluffier, tastier kind of egg omelette made by folding a layer of egg into a neat rolled shape. What makes our version special is that we have infused smoke into it, as a fusion way to serve while maintaining its authentic Japanese taste. Not just the visual effect but the aroma makes our tamagoyaki stand out. That’s why we’re called Smoked Tamago. Another dish we presented to the SSFA judges was our own creation, which involves crossing a Japanese rice burger with a Korean traditional rice bowl dish, bibimbap. The crispy gochujang flavoured rice bun holds layers of bibimbap toppings. Instead of mixing the rice in a bowl, this burger form lets all the flavour combined in a single bite. As our pop up stall is literally on the street, we always focus on how to make sure our customers can eat our street food in a handy way and this new item has been super popular ever since we launched this.

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What has feedback been like from customers?

We love doing markets because the feedback is instant. Our Korean-style fried chicken is one of our best-selling dishes — we’ve had customers come back multiple times in a single day just to get more. Whenever we launch a new item, we get super nervous. My partner will literally chase down customers at the other end of the market just to ask what they think. When we first introduced our Bibim-GER — the rice burger — we were desperate for feedback, because we were planning to take it to the Scottish Street Food Awards. Luckily, everyone loved it, and that really gave us confidence.

Why did you move to Scotland from Hong Kong, and why street food?

Ever since the British National (Oversea) immigration route was opened, we decided to relocate to Scotland, just like many of our fellow Hong Kongers. It was back in 2021. We have done multiple jobs but we never gave up our dream. Last December, we decided it was time to give it a try. Starting off with street food allows us to continue our dream without breaking the bank. We’ve fallen in love with what we do. The interaction with people and seeing familiar faces every week is so rewarding.

Where can people find you?

We do a regular pop up every Tuesday at Leith Walk Police Box, and every Sunday we will be at Errol Sunday Market. We literally travel all around Scotland to join different markets as we are hoping to introduce our food to more people. From The Yard Market in Dundee to Stepps Food Market in Glasgow. For the next two months, we can also be found at Castle Street Market in Edinburgh (July 7-13 and August 6-9).

Contributed

Do you think you'll eventually open a restaurant?

Right now, we’re enjoying travelling around the country, serving our food to new audiences. Our main focus at the moment is the British Street Food Awards in London on September 28. There's a lot of preparation involved for the long trip south, and we’re still thinking about ways to elevate our dishes even further. For now, we’re staying focused to see where this journey takes us.

Are there any new dishes that you're hoping to try in the future?

We actually change our menu almost every week. Since we do regular pop-ups, we’ve got customers who come back every week and they’re always excited when they spot something different on the menu. Apart from our signature dish, tamagoyaki, and our best-seller, Korean fried chicken, everything else is a surprise.

That’s the fun of street food — variety, delicious smells in the air, and the visual impact that catches your eye. Whether you're really hungry and need something filling, or just in the mood to snack, we’ve always got something . Nobody ever gets bored — not even the ones doing the cooking (us!).

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