Tai O is a fishing village located on the western coast of Lantau Island, about a 40 minute ride by…read morebus (or 30 min by taxi) from Tung Chung MTR station. It is like a suburban "Venice" untouched by time. Minus the nasty pigeon poop on San Marcos Square, and US$20 cappucinos and $50 Bellini's. And probably one of the last surviving parts that are still doing a few things the old school way. If you think sun drying clothes is a bit too old world, then your nose may be offended when you smell the pungent dried and fermented shrimp blocks and shrimp pastes when you walk to the factory shops that sell this stuff! Salted fish has nothing on dried and fermented shrimp condiment. Vietnamese fish sauce comes close in that precious flavor profile. Ditto for Vietnamese style fermented fish flavoring used to season pork blood cubes. So if you are into that stuff, chances are you might appreciate fermented shrimp products here and feel right at home. So this restaurant eatery 大澳橫水渡小廚 in Tai O is much like most other places that offer home local style cooked food and dishes. It's not the best looking, but it can be quite remarkable if you know what to order. So much to eat so little time. Ended up braving this place and tried something very fermented, salty, proteiny, and carby. 咸鮮籠仔荷葉飯 (Ham seen lung hai hor yeep fan) 咸鮮 = salted freshness. Basically sun dried salted seafood 籠仔荷葉飯 = rice steamed in lotus leaf, in a bamboo steamer But what they actually put in we were quite surprised with What appeared to be pork jowl/pork cheek/pork neck, dried white fishlings, scallions, and of course fermented shrimp paste (and maybe some cooked/melted fermented shrimp block), and a believe a little bit of squid tentacles. The ingredients are not expensive, although this steamer cost HK$118 which a tad high. But you are getting an original taste of the land. This feeds 6 nicely if you are ordering a variety of dishes to try. Otherwise even one order split across 4 people is more than enough. Save your valuable quota for lots of other fantastic bites in the village.

After leaving Tai O Lookout restaurant having experienced pretty dismal appetizers, we were…read moredesperate. The town was mostly shut down for the night (at 8 pm!) and there was really no where else to find dinner. We called Tai O Crossing Boat Restaurant to check if they were open, and they offered to stay open to accommodate us. We were greeting by an extremely friendly, charismatic man called "Uncle Ray" who chatted with us about everything from his time in the States to his children. We really enjoyed him! The food was delicious! We tried the flat noodles with beef, the steamed choi sum with pickled veggies, the steamed pork patty, and the young chow fried rice - every dish was great. I would highly recommend any of them! My only slight complaint is that the food was a bit expensive, but the service and taste made up for the slightly high prices.

There isn't much to do at Tai O, but I wanted to stop by here for some food and coffee. You're…read moremostly paying for the ambience, but it's definitely a very cozy environment with a scenic view of the fishing village. The staff were friendly and attentive. Each guest must order at least one drink. We got two coffee drinks and they were okay. Not the best, but passable. For food, we got the Shrimp Roe Noodles with Pork. It was pretty tasty and I enjoyed it.

We came here for the 4.5 star average review. It was fiiiiinnnneee but didn't live up to that…read morescore. The view is absolutely the best part - you sit right on the water looking at the mountains. Each person is required to order at least a drink. I had a ginger soda that was some sugar syrup, chunks of ginger and basil. Tasty. We also had the shrimp pork ramen - it's fine but not special. What did look special was what another table was eating - apparently there is a separate menu if you order ahead. If you can figure out how to do that, it seems worth. Otherwise I probably would have used the calories elsewhere during our visit to Hong Kong.

Tai O Fishing Village. Quaint little fishing village on Lantau Island…read more Fishermen's homes are on stilts on the water. You can take a mini boat ride to view the homes up close. Lots of stalls/vendors selling dried seafood, fish balls, etc. for the tourists. As we were leaving, we saw a sign for a pink dolphin tour! Can't get any more touristy than that, but it still sounds like it would be cool if you could actually spot a few pink dolphins. Maybe next time...

Tai O Fishing Village is one of my favorite places of all time to visit in HK, although technically…read moreit is on Lantau Island. To get to Tai O, you need to take the MTR to Central, then change to the Tung Chung line and go all the way there. Then take the #11 bus (45 min ride) or 30 min taxi (running HK$180 to $200) one way. And voila...food, glorious food, and snacks galore, after some walking and exploring. 肥妹燒烤小食 (Fei Mui, or Chubby little sister) is a small eatery that is difficult to miss once you wander into the area. Just look for the signage, but more importantly, someone grilling shellfish galore, smothered in garlic, or cheese, or just a very simple marination like soy sauce or salt/pepper. The smell alone will entice you to come over. Loss of willpower will lead you to just walk into the eatery, grab a stool and start ordering. Don't know what to get? Grilled prawn - HK$35 each (with garlic or cheese) Grilled abalone - HK$40 each Baked oyster with cheese - HK$20 each Grilled scallop on the shell - HK$35 each Sea snails in spicy sauce - HK$45 per plate. This is typical dai pai dong/HK style "izakaya" beer food and of course, cheese baked/grilled lobster - HK$160 each Best bets: grilled prawns (with garlic), abalone, and scallops. Eat like a king (or a mayor) in the village on the cheap! (Dude, we are not in Sendai or Aomori Japan, where you buy fresh seafood off the vendors and take it to the eatery to grill with butter, the quality is not the same here obviously).

Sometimes it takes a Hong Kong Chinese grandma to show you how it is REALLY done…read more Some of the best ever local home cooked meals, you can only find in someone's home, all done by granny. She'll hit up the market same day, cook 3 to 5 dishes and one soup on a small stovetop kitchen in a space that is maybe 1/4 of your typical Californian studio, within a short amount of time, and feed a family of 4 to 6 easy. She relies on no recipes, and cooking comes naturally to her. Problem is that she doesn't write this stuff down unless someone youtubes or instagrams her. So treasure your granny, please! Moms nowadays? They have to take cooking classes (whether from Towngas) or watch Maria Cordero ("fat mama") healthy cooking show to get ideas on how to incorporate barley or wheat flakes into cooking, and look as fabulous as her (think of a skinnier Oprah). Learning to cook fusion, European seems far more healthier than granny's classic recipes with some of the more hardcore stuff. But at the end of the day, sentiment and tradition tastes far better than emulating the trends. Yeah this particular grandma at 其記 (Kei Kee) which is some very plain and ordinary looking village style eatery located in the fishing village of Tai O, has a signature drink so legendary and earth shattering, very simple, yet profound. It's a properly chilled iceless lemon tea. It's a small portion, so you may want to get at least two glasses. The tea is brewed very nicely, and granny puts in some additional effort to slice up lemons without the zest and skin, remove the seeds, and crush the pulp and mix evenly with the tea. Arnold Palmer half tea half lemonade? Please....he can't hold a candle to 其記 granny's recipe! So this mixture is pre-chilled, and when you order it is then mixed with some liquid sweetener. You could request less, but the amount they put in is dead perfect. When you have spent a good portion of the day exploring Tai O on foot, this is the perfect stop for a drink (assuming you don't want the whacky herbal Buddha Fruit drink or the drink that tastes a little bit like hibiscus osmanthus and looks like purple cabbage juice called 紫貝天葵). Awesome, refreshing, delicious, yet addictive! They also have a limited selection of typical HK cafe like snacks. But the chilled lemon tea? Blows away Sing Heung Yuen's easily. The caveat? Getting here from HK Island takes a couple hours :-(

This is one of the first restaurants when you enter the Tai O village. It's right next to the…read morebridge so you cannot miss it. There have pictures of different celebrities in the storefront such as Tony Leung and Chow Yun Fat so I thought it must be good! We tried some of the popular items: clams with black pepper sauce, ong choy with shrimp paste, salt and pepper squid, and fried fish fillets. And yes everything was so delicious! Don't expect anything fancy here. Service was ok. We ordered just off the menu written on the wall. Not sure if they have an English menu but I wanted to say yes since Tai O is a main tourist attraction.

Friendly service in an over-touristed destination…read more Best way in is by boat - otherwise, it's a ten minute walk through the back streets of Tai O. We asked our dolphin tour driver to drop us here, which he had no problems doing. Either way in, it's an interesting arrival! The proprietor - Julia - is super friendly, and courteous to the point of self-effacing. She went through the menu - limited, but simple and appealing - and made clear that if we weren't happy we didn't have to pay. Simple rather HK-fied pizzas with Thousand Island dressing as a topping on one of the choices. Beer, soft drinks and tea/coffee, along with some tasty home made juices and drinks. The prices were high for what we got, but it was great to find a clean, comfortable and scenic viewpoint from which to wrap up our visit to Tai O.

Only stop here for tea/beer. Food is no good; I counted 6 microwaves and you can tell they're used…read morefor everything on the menu. Pizza, fish cakes, etc. Speaking of food...this "restaurant" is located in a fishing village, and there is nothing local nor seafood to eat?! Just because you can practically follow to gweilo walking through the street to-and-from this tourist trap, doesn't mean you should expect anything other than a good fleecing upon arrival. Kitschy at best. Nope

Even though Yelp isn't popular in HK, I'm still surprised nobody has left a review yet-- this place…read moreis well known by locals and tourists alike, and is a standard attraction when visiting Tai O Village. Each "husband" is made to order, and stuffed with minced meat and some lettuce. The sauce is quite good but could be better.

The owner is truly passionate about his work. What makes his egg waffles different from others is…read morethat he uses coal to heat up the mold as opposed to an electric mold. Each egg waffle comes out crunchy with a hint of a fluffy bite inside each bubble. As he was making the egg waffles, he explained that he is only opened three days a week, and has been at this location for many years. He also poured out samples of his red herbal herbal drink. It looks like red fruit punch, and tastes sweet, like a hawberry flavor. At $12HKD, his drink was cheaper than the other vendors and tasted much better. He used regular cane sugar as opposed to the brown cane sugar sticks to bring out the natural herbal berry flavor. It tasted very refreshing on a hot summers day!

Visit Tai O to rediscover the original taste of eggets 雞蛋仔. Compared to ones cooked via…read moreelectricity, these ones are cooked using charcoal, they are more flavoursome, crispier on the outside and soft on the inside. Despite the usual long queue over weekends, it is still worthwhile the wait. Checkout the photos!