Hong Kong investors fond of buying into IPOs have been starved of late. The market for raising capital in the city has been dead for months, prompting some potential issuers to postpone, or even just scrap plans altogether.

But on Monday, those hoping that Hong Kong might be waking up received a much-needed calorie hit with the listing of Cantonese eaterie Tsui Wah.

The 24-hour restaurant chain may not be world famous, but it is a household name in Hong Kong. A favourite of off-duty taxi drivers, in-a-hurry office workers, and late night revellers alike, Tsui Wah is a cha chaan teng in the local parlance, or tea restaurant, serving simple eats from egg and toast to chicken curry.

This was not a blockbuster listing – Tsui Wah raised less than $100m. But appetite looked strong, with local press reporting heavy oversubscription, at least for the retail portion. On the day, the stock rose as much as 12 per cent within the first couple of hours of trading. By mid-afternoon, the gains had tempered a bit – showing a 6 per cent increase on the list price.

So what does an established small Chinese restaurant chain need this much money for? Believe it or not, it’s for expanding into China. Tsui Wah currently has 21 outlets in Hong Kong, one in Macao, and four on the mainland. It wants to use the cash raised to open another 24 restaurants on the mainland over the next three years in Shanghai, Shenzhen, and the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

Ronald Wan of China Merchant Securities, speaking on Bloomberg TV on Monday morning, described Tsui Wah as the kind of stock you buy right at the start and sell on day one.

Yet the performance of the best known listed Hong Kong food chain suggest the Tsui Wah plan has potential at least. Cafe de Coral – which has over 300 “operating units” in Hong Kong alone, as well as 100 in southern China and 140 in north America (under the brand name “Manchu Wok”) – listed on the Hong Kong exchange 14 years ago. But it has had a pretty decent run in recent months, gaining 29 per cent so far this year. On Monday, perhaps bouyed by the Tsui Wah listing, the stock rose a further 1.3 per cent amid a falling Hang Seng.

Tsui Wah is a much smaller business. But Cafe de Coral’s experience shows that selling Cantonese food in China can work. Now Tsui Wah just has to make it gets the right recipe.