Fook Moon Lam Restaurant

Kat Hing Back St, Tai O
Visited 20th August 2008
Back in Hong Kong and a visiting mate needed a break from the bars of Wan Chai so we headed off for a day exploring the wilds of Lantau. Remote Tai O situated on the island's extreme west is a great spot to bring visitors. This old fishing village, where many of the houses are raised on stilts over the water, offers short boat trips to try and see Hong Kong's pink dolphins; we were lucky and I got my first glimpse of these allusive mammals. Tai O's restaurants are outnumbered by stalls selling 'souvenirs', but we managed to find Fook Moon Lam amongst the jars of shrimp paste and pungent piles of dried mussels.

This basic local style restaurant has a pretty standard menu with a focus, as you'd expect, on seafood. We ordered salt and peppers squid and fried grouper with 'sweet' sauce. The heaped plate of squid was excellent with slithers of fiery chilli mixed into the thin, crisp batter. The 'sweet sauce' in which the fillets of grouper were swimming was basically a mix of sweet corn and starch and was interesting though a little too cloying. To accompany the food we kept things simple with a couple of bowls of rice and cans of soft drink.
I didn't mind Fook Moon Lam; things are pretty basic, but there's nothing wrong with plates piled with fresh seafood, especially the tasty tender squid like we had. Prices are reasonable; our squid cost $68 and the fish $60. While it certainly isn't five star the blokes running the show were friendly and the service was efficient. I probably wouldn't trek to Lantau Island just to eat at Fook Moon Lam, but I would to visit Tai O, so get motivated and take a trip to this great little corner of Hong Kong.