We ate here on the recommendation of my son who had dined there several times and "never suffered any aftereffects". The tanks of fresh crabs, lobsters, prawns, and fish displayed the freshness of their "raw material," and having watched the antics of the freshly caught seafood, we chose a table overlooking the waterfront. You just can’t beat eating to the sound of the waves lapping on the seashore!
Now, I don’t want to pretend that this is a classy restaurant laid out with extravagant furnishings, but it feels much better than the seaside café it presents itself as being. White plastic garden furniture serves as the dining tables, although they are covered by crisp red-and-white checked tablecloths. We sat under a giant parasol adorned with Chinese lanterns, well away from Lama’s main street.
We started off with a pot of Chinese tea (with a never-ending tea supply throughout the meal) and then poured over the menu. What to have? It all sounded superb. As usual, we wanted a good selection and opted for spring rolls, baked crab with ginger green onion, fried prawns with scallops and cashew nuts, Garoupa cutlet with sweet corn, and fried rice in fook chowstyle. We chose a local beer and sat back enjoying the view and the endless supply of tea.
First to arrive were the spring rolls – I have to say that these were not the best I’d tasted in Hong Kong, but there was a very spicy chili sauce available as a dip. They needed this to pep them up a bit, as the "innards" were somewhat bland. But, if this was the low spot of the meal, everything else made up for this shortfall. The Garoupa was so well cooked that it virtually melted in the mouth, and the sweet corn sauce beautifully enhanced the delicate flavours of this freshly caught fish. Next on the table arrived the crab – sensationally presented but somewhat difficult to eat, as we were determined to pick every available morsel from the carcass. My only advice is to resist eating all the ginger, as it is particularly strong in flavour. Our waiter was not insensitive to our messiness (a sign of our appreciation of the meal, our son insisted) and brought a finger bowl and additional serviettes to the table. With a polite smile, he said, "finger bowl" – perhaps he thought we’d consume it with the rest of the meal!
The fried prawns came next (the tender meat exquisitely complimented by a delightful sauce and copious cashews) and then the rice. The rice was a massive portion and crammed with scallops, prawns, mushrooms, and pakchow – a meal in itself
The four of us struggled to eat everything, but with time on our hands, we paused, chatted, and then returned to the feast that lay before us. A cracking meal for little cost, we’d certainly recommend it to you.