Venice of Hong Kong? Tai-O village

Decided to take a day-trip out to Lantau Island on a recent stop-over in Hong Kong.  There are a couple of ways to get there, but we decided to take the cable car across.  Lantau Island is well-known for the Giant Buddha, but I must say my favourite part of the trip was at Tai-O fishing village.

Tai-O village is also known as the Venice of the Hong Kong - there are stilt houses built over the waterways.  The village is apparently known for its salt production and fishing.  There's a defintely a distinct tang of salted fish in the air.  Idyllic like anything - it's lightning years away from It-handbags and glass-steel skyscrapers.  With a very kampung feel, it brought back memories of an older, slower pace of life where time crawls lazily by.



Boats of all types

We wandered down a narrow alley littered with stalls selling all kinds of seafood - both the live and dried varieties.

salted fish drying on hooks

variety of live seafood

Stumbled upon a stall selling "san sui tau fu far" or literally "mountain water bean curd pudding".  We didn't pass up the chance to try it out.  And boy, were we mightily glad we didn't. It was beautifully smooth - even better than the famed Ipoh Snowy Mountain tau fu far. 

We spied a table ordering the mixed seafood with curry sauce and didnt hesitate to place an order too.  You get fishballs and cuttle-fish dunked in a spicy curry and a dollop of XO sauce on the side.  Shiok...sweating buckets by then, we finished with a bowl of black sesame paste.

On the pier-side, there are boats touting dophin watches.  Unfortunately, we only had 45 minutes in the village and barely skimmed Tai-O's charms.  It's a lovely spot to chill out wher everything's just a tad slower and simpler.

stilt houses

a closer look at the front or is it the back of a stilt house



the only bus-stop to the pier and town center



Cool, cool desserts in HK summer...

If you think KL is hot, think again.  Summer in Hong Kong is worse.  It's muggy, humidity is in the high 80s and temperatures stay in the 30Cs day and night.  It just doesn't let up, and the heat emissions from all the vehicles just makes it worse.  Hot air permeates every single pore in your body.  I just had to duck into every other shop for its 'free' air-conditioning to cool-off.  Cheap, I know, but what to do?  It was that, or total melt-down.  No air-con, no eats - that was my mantra and I didn't care how delish its rated to be.

It was a no-brainer to head down to Tin Hau for desserts first.  I found this little tong sui place when I stayed at L'Hotel Causeway Bay a few trips back.  We were totally bowled over by its tong sui.  Its called Ching Ching Desserts.  I only noticed later that for a little hole-in-the-wall, it had a stream of luxury cars parked outside and it's crowded.  It's now on our must-stop-to-eat-every-trip list. 

Like most HK eateries, the tables are tiny, you perch on even tinier stools and you'll be elbowing or shouldering your neighbour.  So be prepared to stack your bags on your lap if you drop by in the middle of a massive shopping haul.  Its conveniently located too - just about a 5 minutes trot from the Tin Hau MTR station.

Gluttons that we are, between the 2 of us, we ordered the walnut cream with tofu pudding, mango on tofu pudding (tau fu far) and to top it off, a half-and-half of black sesame and almond cream. We would have ordered more, but were too embarrassed.

The tofu pudding is unlike what we get in Malaysia - it's ultra smooth, but also a little more firm and bouncy.  Very nice.  The mango topping which was essentially some pureed mango and mango chunks were deliciously cold and the entire concoction just glides down effortlessly.  Not too sweet.



Tofu pudding with mango puree







Tofu pudding with walnut cream



Big Dog just loves their walnut, almond and black sesame desserts.  Regardless of the heat, he had to have them all, so he compromised with ordering the black&white which is black sesame and almond cream and having the walnut cream with tofu pudding. Sinful but oh-so-good.



Black sesame and almond cream



Ching Ching Desserts

77 Electric Road,

Tin Hau, Hong Kong

Nearest MTR : Tin Hau