While shrimp paste has been a constant source of income since Cheng Kai-keung’s great-grandfather established the business in 1920, the village in which the family business is based has seen dramatic change over the years, surviving typhoons, floods and fires – which in 2013 and 2020 destroyed many of its unique stilt houses (pang uk).
Seafood processing – along with salt production – once thrived here, but a decline in the fishing industry, and a ban on trawling introduced in 2013 to prevent further damage to Hong Kong’s marine habitat, cut off supplies of local shrimp, says Cheng, who now sources the raw material for his products from mainland China.
“Back in the 1960s, Tai O had more than 10 shrimp sauce factories,” he adds.
Today Cheng Cheung Hing (17A Shek Tsai Po Street, Tai O. Tel: 2985 7347) is one of only two shrimp paste makers still operating in Tai O. Sing Lee Shrimp Sauce and Paste Manufacturer (10 Shek Tsai Po St, Tai O. Tel: 2985 7330) is the other. It has been making shrimp paste and sauce for more than 90 years.
On sunny days you can see the paste drying on giant flat round baskets in the village.
“Salted fish is good in a stew with eggplant,” she says. A kitten clambers over her shoulder. “His name is Little Lobster.”
Shrimp sauce, she says, is best used as a condiment, usually as a dipping sauce, while the more concentrated shrimp paste (shrimp meat with salt added to ferment it) is a cooking ingredient. “You only need to add a little paste when cooking.”
The company supplies local restaurants and food stalls, Lee says, including Tai O Lookout, a few minutes’ walk away. The restaurant is part of the Tai O Heritage Hotel, a colonial-style building with nine guest rooms that was once the Tai O Police Station.
Its menu is sprinkled with shrimp dishes, from deep-fried shrimp toast with shrimp paste mayonnaise to fried rice with shrimp, chicken and choy sum.
Sing Lee’s products are best sampled in the weekend-only “Taste of Tai O Tea Set” – HK$328 (US$40) for two, which includes a pork chop puff with shrimp paste and crispy chicken wings with shrimp paste.
Supporting Tai O businesses has been part of the hotel’s ethos since opening in 2012. And it is not alone in celebrating Tai O flavours. Other restaurants and food stalls feature dishes that use locally made shrimp paste and sauce on their menus. The Post sampled a few.
Cafes for a quick bite
Espace Elastique
Tai O’s first bed and breakfast is also a cafe, and it has been creative in its use of local produce. Its signature thin-crust pizza (HK$88) has tomato sauce infused with shrimp paste, and finely ground Tai O salted fish sprinkled among the cheese and tomato slices.
“The final touch is the tiny dried sakura shrimp on top,” says owner Veronica Chan. “It’s subtle – if we use too much shrimp it will be too pungent.”
Those in the “no seafood on pizza” camp can select from toppings such as margherita, prosciutto, and sausage and peppers, or a pasta dish.
“My speciality is the dual-coloured yin-yang pesto pasta [HK$118],” says Chan, who moved back to Tai O in 2009 when she opened her business. Her parents and grandparents grew up in the village.
57 Kat Hing Street. Tel: 2985 7002
Solo Cafe
This cafe serves coffees you can drink while seated on a spacious terrace with some of the best views of the canal.
In a nod to Tai O, it serves savoury dishes including shrimp roe noodles with either chicken wings, beef or pork.
Those with a sweet tooth will love the home-made cheesecake, tiramisu and serradura – a lush layered dessert of mousse and finely crumbled biscuit that is also called sawdust pudding and Macau pudding.
86-88 Kat Hing Street. Tel: 9153 7453
Street food favourites
A must-have are egg waffles cooked the traditional way – directly over glowing charcoal embers instead of an electric egg waffle iron that is commonly used in Hong Kong’s urban areas. One vendor, Mr Chan, says to get a crunchy puff, the waffle is placed next to a small cooling fan as soon as it is removed from the coals.
Trays of salted duck egg yolks, a Tai O speciality, can often be spotted baking under the sun and for sale in bags hanging among dried fish.
Food-on-a-stick fans are well catered for in Tai O, whether it is frozen sliced fruits (pineapple, papaya, watermelon) or chargrilled seafood (giant cuttlefish, squid and prawns).
Cheung Choi Kee
Join the queue for a “husband roll”: fried minced pork and shredded lettuce stuffed into a crispy Indian roti, its name loosely derived from the Cantonese words for “shrimp, pork and roll” (haa juu beng).
These tasty treats (HK$30 each) have a Tai O twist with the addition of sun-dried shrimp paste, made on-site by Cheung Choi Kee the traditional way – hand ground using a stone mill which, unlike a machine, does not generate heat, thus better preserving the shrimp’s aroma and creating a taste that is smooth and delicate.
41 Kat Hing Street. Tel: 2985 7428
Fuk Hing Hong (4D Wing On Street. Tel: 2874 1010) at the entrance to the village, draws crowds keen to try its juicy, jumbo-sized fish balls on a stick, while Venice Seafood Restaurant, next to the Instagrammable – read crowded – pedestrian bridge is the spot for grilled squid with Tai O shrimp paste.
Tai O Bakery
Operating from the same spot for more than 40 years, this family-run business is known for its light and fluffy sugar doughnuts (HK$15 each) that are handmade and deep-fried on site.
“We don’t make them oily and only use fresh ingredients,” says Calvin Wong, as he and his mother, Lily, pack oven-fresh treats into brown paper bags.
Peanut sesame mochi (HK$10 each, HK$28 for two) and mango mochi (HK$15 each) are also sold here and are best washed down with a home-brewed herbal drink that comes in flavours such as lemon barley tea (HK$20) and mountain begonia (HK$20), a bittersweet and slightly sour herbal drink that, according to traditional Chinese medicine, helps cool the body.
66 Kat Hing Street. Tel: 2985 8621
Tai O Fatty
G/F, 21 Market Street.
Tai O Wah Lee
Mochi in a medley of flavours (mango, red bean, peanut sesame) are popular at this family-run stall. “My parents were born in Tai O and set this up 20 years ago,” says Karen Wah-lee while offering a sample of its bestselling mango rice cake (HK$30) topped with peanuts, sugar and black and white sesame.
Other treats include egg waffles, brown sugar rice cakes and tea cakes, a traditional Hakka snack stuffed with peanut, sesame or a red bean paste. Try its red bean leaf cake or peanut leaf cake made with Paederia foetida, an Ayurvedic herb better known as Chinese fever vine.
73 Wing On Street. Tel: 2985 5611
Places to enjoy a full meal
Fook Moon Lam (29 Market Street. Tel: 2985 7071) in the heart of Tai O village serves various seafood dishes, but for a local experience try the Tai O shrimp paste fried rice with dried shrimps (HK$80).
