Dim Sum at Fook Lam Moon 福臨門 Kowloon

Fook Lam Moon 福臨門 (FLM) restaurant is considered one of the best Cantonese restaurants in Hong Kong. FLM’s one-star Michelin outlet at Wan Chai is said to be very popular with tycoons and celebrities. Being neither tycoon nor celebrity, we, ordinary patrons, decided to go to their more humble branch on Kimberley Road in Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon. It was also closer to where we were staying.

At the time of our visit there was a huge bus parked right in front of Fook Lam Moon Tsim Sha Tsui, which explains the awkward angles by which we had to take the picture of the main entrance. The next best thing we can do is to take a photo of the shops across the road (above photo).  As you can see, Kimberley Road is a very traditional Hong Kong type of street. The entrance and signboard of FLM was very traditional and low-key.

Even when we passed through the door, there was no sign of restaurant activity, just a stairway leading upwards. Once we reached the first level, the space opened up to reveal a bright, comfortable dining area.

Now, this was more like the Fook Lam Moon that we had read about. We were in the late morning and ordered some dim sum items.  Our Chinese / Cantonese is not very good so it was fortunate that the dim sum orders could be made by the multiple choice type of forms.  We could make out roughly what to order (with 80% accuracy). Here is a photo of our order form. The dim sum items mostly were priced HK$50 to 70 with more exotic items costing more.

The first item to arrive was the char siew pastry.  We thought we were ordering a char siew soh, but it turned out to be more like a por lor pau. Anyway what was more important was that it was very good. The pastry was smooth and buttery. It is something we would want to try it again.

We might have also made a slight error with the next item. We thought we were ordering the common prawn dumpling, har pau.  But this one had both prawns and vegetables in them. Unless this was the Fook Lam Moon version of har kau, we probably ticked a variant of the har kau. This item was not bad but the vegetable taste somehow did not blend well with the prawn.

We did not make any mistake with the rice rolls with char siew. It was the best dish of the day. The rice sheets were smooth and translucent. The sauce was well-made and had a good complex taste.  We would definitely eat this at our next visit.

The final savoury dish was an expensive version of the usual xiao long pau.  This one was made with crabmeat fillings and cost HK$150. The presentation, the texture of the skin and the crabmeat taste were exquisite. If we have to make a criticism, it would be that it was too dry.  The dumplings did not contain the bit of soup that common xiao long pau contains.

Our last item was a sweet dim sum with egg yolk. This tasted quite ordinary and we thought that the egg filling was not gooey enough.

All in all we were glad to finally visit Fook Lam Moon, a restaurant we had read so much about. We were there early and had the place almost all to ourselves. The service was attentive and polite.

Ratings:
Food: 4
Service: 4
Value: 3
Atmosphere: 3
Overall Rating: 4 TOPs

Fook Lam Moon
53-59 Kimberley Road, Tsimshatsui, Kowloon

Tel / Fax 2366-0286 / 2739-8063