Not as good as thought. Just a ordinary Thai with no surprise. Great to fill up the stomach and…read morewith the excuse of dinning out without spending much. Shop is in simple decor or no decor. Plastic disposable table cloth sheet would tell how it operate. Stools with no back rest. Lot of people queue in. The power of advertising is indeed great. ...

Our friend used to come here all the time so when I asked for his favorite hot pot joint in TST, he…read moreimmediately brought us to Hot Pot House. The atmosphere is definitely old school with tons of pictures of celebrities up on the walls coming up the stairs to the restaurant. Get there before the dinner rush or you will be waiting a while to get a table! There are English menus if you ask your server. Their broth is really good - I'm told it's boiled up to about 5hrs every day! The service is okay. They get really busy so you might have to track them down to get served. Their signature dishes are: - diced beef - osmanthus mussels (soooo good!) - goose sausage (but we didn't try this) Every table I saw had chicken testicles, so we went along and ordered a plate. It was different; chewy. I'm glad I tried it, but I don't think I'll order it again. There are two or three private rooms located toward the back of the restaurant. There is a 10% service charge, so no need to tip!

Heritage Tea House is my rainy day happy place. As a cozy, tucked away haven Heritage Tea House…read moreoffers an ambiance that calls for a large comfy chair and a good book you just can't put down - but instead you will find yourself seated at a wooden table gazing at Asian art surrounding you. There's something tranquil about this place as each table has its own tea kettle heater, the staff are always ready to take your order, and once the food comes out you will think you have found your way to heaven. I typically go for lunch and get the lunch set - a steal at HK$40 - including tea and dumplings with noodles. I often get the butterfly cookies (2 for HK$10) just to top off this delightful experience. Something about this magical place on a rainy day makes for the perfect relaxation during lunch to get me recharged to make it through the rest of the day. Come early or late though as there is limited seating to be had!

Booked marked this place after my first taste of the congee. I have a game at the near by sports…read morecenter and came up to Tai Po early to eat before the game. Found this congee place on Open Rice. Did the Congee / Cheung fun 艇仔粥/蝦米腸粉 set for HK$50. A little pricy for way out here. I pay $47 on HK Island for the same set. But it is very high quality with tasty ingredients. Good 腸粉 is hard to make and they do a crazy good job. No drink as part of the set so I ponyed up $17 for the milk tea. $67 for a very tasty but not large lunch. Can't beat it.

Chan Hon Kee came up on my IG feed as a local HKer posted a pic of the boh jai fan. It looked so…read moredamn good that I asked a good friend if we could eat there during my short stay in September. Little did I know how destructive and disruptive Mangkhut would end up being so I had to postpone the visit. Little did I know that Chan Hon Kee was literally down the street from where my friend lives. Only issue was that it takes around 45 mins to get from the island out to Tai Po. We arrived shortly before 1830 to find a hella busy restaurant with a fairly long line. Luckily, the line moved quickly and we jumped the line as we had 5 in our party. As typical with most old school HK restaurants, the workers here don't have patience with patrons that are indecisive so don't take it personally when they give you attitude. Be sure you know what you want to order before they seat you and all will be good. We started off with two bowls of 皮蛋瘦肉粥 and damn was it tasty. The 粥 had the perfect consistency which I only remember my grandmas making. I have yet to find a place in LA or SF that is as good. Only other place similar that I can think of was at a place my Uncle took me to in 光州. Next came out was the 炸兩 and the 牛肉腸粉. Both were super tasty but the 炸兩 took home the gold medal. The last two dishes that came out were the 煲仔飯. Was a bit too eager to dig into them as the rice was still a bit on the wet side but damn were they still good! Was stuffed or else I would've scraped the sides to eat all of the crispy rice. This place was worth the long trek out to Tai Po and am looking forward to going back next year. Do save room for the 煲仔飯 as they were delicious.i

Personally I have never been too keen on cooked food stalls in wet markets- in most cases they seem…read moreto lose their flavor by moving indoors (not too sure how they happens but it just does). The place is usually quite sterile (in the sense that they have no special features, they remain filthy) and in general its just not a very invigorating experience. "3 siu jeh" is a very a different place in itself- if you note how long the queue is during dinner then you know must have something that keeps brining people back here. To start with, you can always buy seafood at the wet market downstairs and bring it up here to be cooked by these people. That's something special that you won't see much of outside of Saikung. The second thing is that they serve a lot of special dishes themselves (e.g. the crab in sticky rice is a must) and their "stir fry" items are also a constant source of joy. The seating arrangement might not be idea and half the time the staff just seem to stuff you in the most convenient corner for them to serve you. The other problem is that this place is full EVERYTIME you come here, from the carpark to the table you are constantly playing a waiting game which tests your patience even if you were a saint. Prices are not cheap either for a place that could be said be a little better than a street side stall. Would I recommend it? Yes, on account of the food here I would come here and try it but I have become a lot less enthusiastic than before and I suspect that a lot of people have joined the ranks of people looking elsewhere given Taipo's long list of choices.

As we just finished dinner, there were people smoking next to us, despite the banners asking people…read morenot to smoke inside. Since we finished dinner already, we might as well go. For the sake of the rest of the patrons still eating there, many of whom were children, I mentioned to the waiters that the people were smoking next to us. One of them pretended not to hear me, and the other was being really irate saying that it isn't their business and started swearing at me, telling me to call Tobacco Control. I asked if that is their restaurant, he escalated his swearing to pick a fight with me.

After the bowl of dan dan noodles, we headed straight for a fish soup noodles place called 魚鱻魚湯專門店…read morewe had seen while exploring what was offered in the area. This type of cuisine is my mom's territory. While I love the fish soup itself, my mom loves the stringy rice noodles. This place was packed with a constant stream of customers. You eat on these blue plastic stools and pay at the front cashier when you are done. One of the staff was so nice to carefully explain and simplify the menu and options down for us when she saw us struggling/taking a longer time to order than most others. My mom got a bowl of fish soup with rice noodles, 扎肉(Vietnamese sausage), and 魚鰾 (swim bladder). We also got a side of green steamed choi sum veggies. I haven't had fresh fish swim bladder like this in probably 10 years. We just don't eat this in Toronto anymore. It was sooo freshy, soft, tender, yet gooey at the same time. It was so good. The Vietnamese sausage was thicker and more fragrant than the ones I've had in Toronto. It was interesting but quite good. Appearance-wise, it looked very bland actually. The rice noodles were not to my liking at all since they were so hard in texture. The fish soup was amazing -- so flavourful and simple and clearly devoid of any MSG. A neighbouring diner was eating a bowl of fish noodles with the entire steamed fish in it! Tail, head, bones, and all. The rice noodles (or you could also choose rice) was served separately. It looked like such a wholesome and "ching" option. If we return again, I want to try the whole fish soup as well as their fried fish skin.

If you like fish cake, this is the place to be. It is one of their signature dishes. They make…read morethe fish cake fresh and the skin is pan fried to perfection, it is really crispy and flavorful. They are also well known for their fish with noodle soup. We ordered the whole fish and it tasted tender and juicy. They started to run out of fish after we ordered, so get their early if you can to get what you want. Also had the fried fish skin, tasted awesome too. None of the fish items were fishy. This is authentic food and you will not find many tourists here. We didn't have to wait long at all to get seated, we got there around 8:30 on a weekday. Don't bring your date here, the decor can use some work, and the kitchen is visible by others depend where you sit, and you can see them cleaning fish guts out. Prices are very reasonable and affordable.