Claw Surprize (Queensway)

Claw Surprize is an independent claw shop with people actually behind the counter. Ask, and someone will come over and show you how a particular machine behaves before you spend anything on it, which is more than the unstaffed chain shops can offer.

It is also part collectibles shop. Alongside the machines it sells figurines, Re-Ment miniatures and Ichiban Kuji, the Japanese ticket draws where every ticket takes a prize of some rank. The claw prizes are the weak point: the plush has got cheaper than it used to be, so look properly through a cabinet rather than going by whatever is sitting on top.

If you want to leave with something specific, the Kuji is the surer route — you pay, you draw, and you get whatever your ticket says rather than whatever the claw decides to hold on to. Do not go in the morning: it opens after lunch and shuts earlier than the mall around it. You will find it on level two of Queensway Shopping Centre, the older mall off Alexandra Road that most people know for its sports shops.