Big isn't always beautiful

I'm back at Fook Lam Moon (福臨門) for lunch with Tigger and family.  It's one of my favorite places for dim sum, and I haven't been here in a while, so naturally I was pretty excited about this visit.

We have a relatively big group today, although if I actually counted there weren't actually that many mouths to feed.  We ordered up a storm anyway…

Steamed rice wrapped in lotus leaf (鮮荷葉飯) - this was ordered and arrived first, since some of us had to leave early and stomachs needed filling fast.  Very delicious but what a huge portion!  One of us ended up with 6 bowls of this…

Puff pastry with honey roast pork (蜜汁叉燒酥) - forgot that I didn't really care for their version here…

Deep-fried taro and chicken pockets (雞粒荔芋角) - I've always loved these, and wish I had eaten more of it.

Crispy pork belly (脆皮燒腩仔)

Pan fried cured meat and radish cake (香煎蘿蔔糕) - pretty good as always.

Pan-fried cuttlefish patties with corn (金粟墨魚餅) - I like cuttlefish and I like corn, so what's not to like about this?

Stewed honeycomb tripe (柱候金錢肚) - yum.

Steamed vegetable dumplings (上素蒸粉飽) - the skin is a little too thick, and the filling - despite having a decent texture - a little too bland.

Steamed prawn dumplings with bamboo shoots (har gau, 筍尖鮮蝦餃) - these definitely got bigger recently, stuffed to the max with prawns and bamboo shoots.  But the quality seems to have deteriorated somewhat, and I noticed that the folds can be uneven, and I'm not sure that every dumpling still has the classic 13 folds anymore…  Because I was responsible for ordering the extra basket, I ended up having 3 of these.  Burp!

Steamed honey roast pork buns (char siu bao, 蠔皇叉燒包) - yum…

Just have to show the yummy filling...

Steamed rice rolls with barbecued pork (蜜汁叉燒腸)

Deep fried prawn and chicken spring rolls (雞絲蝦春卷) - somehow the filling isn't as tasty as I remembered, although the exterior is still crispy and yummy.

Glutinous rice balls steamed in apple leaves (豆沙蘋葉角) - for some reason this dessert came way, way too early, and got cold by the time we finished the savory dishes.  The kitchen also seemed to have changed things a little - perhaps using a little less oil - so that the glutinous rice exterior stuck to the leaves.  I've had this many times here, and this would be the first that this has happened.

Quite a few of us were stuffed, thanks to our ambitious ordering.  While the overall quality remains high, I got the feeling that execution level has dropped a little since my last dim sum lunch here.  I would find out later in the day that I wasn't the only one who felt this way...