Blueberry Cookies from Cookies Quartet

Cookies Quartet is a shop that specialises in handmade cookies. It is based in Hong Kong and is located at Kowloon City.

I love their cookies and most of the flavours in their assorted mix box are good. Their "Devil Chocolate Cookies", "Almond Butter Crisps" and "Hazelnut Pepper Cookies" are the most popular flavours and usually the first to finish in the assorted box.

The Husband also like their Palmiers.

I like their Blueberry Cookies a lot. These crisp cookies come with a tinge of lemon taste in the background and very chewy dried blueberries. You have to buy these separately as they do not come in the basic Cookies Quartet assorted box. I find these quite hard to stop eating and usually eat 4 - 5 each time. (Actually, I don't usually like cookies that very much so I can't quite understand why these appeal so much to me..)

I was reading an old post of mine on Cookies Quartet when I suddenly had cravings for these blueberry cookies. I posted my cravings for these cookies on Facebook and a few days later... guess what? Dear, sweet Ting messaged me to let me know that she has a packet of these for me! All the way from Hong Kong! CH was in Hong Kong and his friend knew how to get these... and so they got a packet for me.

Wow! It was such a lovely surprise to receive this yummy gift! I was really touched by this gesture. Thank you again, Ting and CH!

I like the gold paper clip used to seal the packaging..

Cookies Quartet

Add: G/F, 9A Lion Rock Road, Kowloon City
Tel: +852-2382 2817

Happy Cookies from Cookies Quartet

Cookies are happy food to me.

And Cookies Quartet is one of my favourite places in the world for delicious, delicate cookies. Cookies Quartet is based in Hong Kong and is located at Kowloon City.

They sell a variety of flavours - my favourites are Hazelnut Pepper Cookies, Devil Chocolate Cookies and Blueberry Cookies.

They are also very famous for their palmiers. Palmiers, also called "Butterfly puffs" in Cantonese are made from puff pastry, similar to the dough used for croissant, but without the yeast. These are buttery, super light and crispy. The sugar/ honey layer on top of the palmier is sweet yet not too sweet. These are pretty dangerous snacks because it is really hard to stop eating them once you start.

Get a box of the cookies or palmiers the next time you travel to Hong Kong!

 

Cookies Quartet

Add: G/F, 9A Lion Rock Road, Kowloon City
Tel: +852-2382 2817

Lan Fong Yuen in Tsim Sha Tsui

I always like shops that bring you back into childhood days. Lan Fong Yuen (蘭芳園) is definitely a shop like that.

For one, the shop itself looks like it comes from the past.. Even this outlet in a spanking new mall at Tsim Sha Tsui. (The original shop is at Central)

The shop is famous for "Lou Ting" (撈丁), which means "Stirred Instant Noodles" (撈出前一丁). 出前一丁 is a famous instant noodles brand in Hong Kong, manufactured by Nissin. The instant noodles are boiled, drained and then tossed with some sauce. It is then topped with chicken or pork, eggs and a ginger scallion mix.

"Stirred Instant Noodles" reminds me of the instant noodles dishes my sister and I used to make when we were much younger. Back then, instant noodles are our "specialty" and we would always add a fried egg or sausage in our noodles. Our "brand of choice" back then was not Nissin but Myojo.

Lan Fong Yuen is also famous for their milk tea. Some say they serve the best in HK but I never order milk tea at Lan Fong Yuen.

I like my milk tea with bread from Kam Hua. Instead, I'd order 7-Up with Salty Lemon (檸七). Salty lemon is preserved lemon and it is salty and sour, making it perfect with iced-cold, sweet 7-Up. This drink reminds me of how I used to insist having salt in my 7-Up as a kid!

Lan Fong Yuen also sell boxes of homemade salty lemon so you can bring them home to make this excellent beverage!

Salty lemon with 7-Up

Lou-Ding - with braised chicken wings, fried eggs and vegetables. 

The ginger scallion mix is most delicious

Lan Fong Yuen (蘭芳園)

36-44 Nathan Road
Shop 26, LG, Chung King Mansion (Woodhouse)
Tsim Sha Tsui

Genki Sushi in HK

There are 2 things I think they do in better in Hong Kong. (Not that we do everything else better here but these are the 2 things I think there is little debate required)

The first being the bus system. Singapore buses are infrequent and makes far too many stops. Quite a pain to travel on and most of us would take the subway anytime.
It takes an hour and a half for me to travel from my place to my grandma's place on a weekend and really, Singapore is far too small to warrant such travel time.

Hong Kong bus network is excellent - short waiting times during peak hours and most have very well designed routes.

The second is Genki Sushi. Genki Sushi HK serves fresh sushi and offers a vast menu, with seasonal specials.

The one in Singapore, if Genki sushi is still here in Singapore at all really isn't that good.

Each time I go Hong Kong, I'd frequent the Genki sushi near where we stay. Unfortunately, it is wildly popular with the residents in the estate and sometimes the queues are just too ridiculous.

I managed to have a meal there last trip and after a few photos, I kind of forgot about photo taking! So as you can see, the food is really quite delicious.

Patisserie Tony Wong

Kowloon City is an old part of Hong Kong where the old Kai Tak airport used to be. It is home to lots of old shops in Hong Kong, including lots of places I like - like really good Thai restaurants, Big Wife Beef Noodles (best beef noodles), really good fruit stalls, a very traditional and nice dim sum restaurant, a good tea shop.. and now this...

Patisserie Tony Wong.

This place has given me another reason to like Kowloon City.

Tony Wong is a famous pastry chef in Hong Kong. I've seen him in action on some cooking show before - he may be boring but he can sure bake and create all kinds of wonderful looking pastries.

I liked everything I saw in his shop but I only had the stomach for 1, so I chose a very pretty looking raspberry choux pastry.

The shop doesn't have any seats but if you want to eat your pastry right there, they'd give you a nice little tray and you can stand at a little bar by the counter to polish up when you ordered.

A little awkward, really.. but I couldn't care less that day. I took my camera out and snapped away at the pastry, before eating it reluctantly. It looked so pretty I couldn't bear to take my first bite!

The raspberry part was fantastic - the raspberry went very well with the sweet jelly-like thing that was piped into the middle of each fruit. The pastry was a little tough for my liking but it was filled with a really nice vanilla creme.

Doesn't this look pretty?

I liked the jelly-like thing in the middle of the raspberry 

and the vanilla jam in the middle of the choux pastry

I will be going back again to try more cakes, that's for sure.

The house specialty is the rose-like cake - It is beautiful and would make a lovely gift, I think.

Patisserie Tony Wong

Add: 74 Fok Lo Tsun Road, Kowloon City
Tel: (852) 2382 6639

Yung Kee Restaurant in Hong Kong

I'm not quite sure why I haven't blogged about Yung Kee Restaurant before. This is such a famous restaurant that almost everyone I know who've been to Hong Kong has visited this store.

Yung Kee is famous for its roasted goose. Roasted goose is not a dish you can find in Singapore - roasted chicken and duck are extremely common in Singapore. But roasted goose.. I don't believe it is available in Singapore at all.

I am not a great fan of roasted goose, although I must say the one at Yung Kee taste pretty good. The fat content of goose is higher than poultry and most other game birds, hence it taste crispy, juicy but yet chewy after roasting.

Apart from the roasted goose, all other dishes we ordered that day were good.

The char siew (or barbequed pork) was excellent even to me - someone who doesn't fancy pork. This was The Husband's favourite dish that night.

The wanton (dumpling) soup was also good - their wantons are made very delicately, into small bitesize pieces. They resemble tiny goldfish and are called "goldfish wantons". We also had sweet and sour pork, vegetables with 3 kinds of eggs and fried squid. Every dish had a fan and my whole family enjoyed our dinner a lot.

My favourite dish of the night had to be the starter - century eggs with pickled ginger. The century eggs at Yung Kee is especially good and it is a must-eat item. The owner of the restaurant deliberately picks century eggs that have been preserved for a certain number of days to ensure that every century egg you eat at Yung Kee has a soft-centre (think soft boiled eggs).

So if you ever visit Yung Kee - remember to order the century eggs and the roasted goose, if nothing else. I would also highly recommend the char siew and wanton soup.

P/S: Do also drop me a note to tell me if you can find a place in Singapore selling char siew of similar quality. The Husband has been searching for a place with good char siew for a while now..

The top 4 dishes at Yung Kee

Yung Kee Restaurant

Add: 32-40 Wellington Street, Central, Hong Kong

Tel: (852) 2522 1624

Duck Shing Ho Coconut Egg Rolls

These egg rolls are hard to get.

Really.

You either order them in advance (I hear the queue is about 2 weeks) or queue up for them from 9 am in the morning.

Dubbed by many as the "Best Egg Rolls" in Hong Kong, these egg rolls from Duck Shin Ho (德成號) are popular with both tourists and locals. A popular TV artiste and food critic in Hong Kong highly recommends this place and once said that she can finish an entire tin at one go whilst watching TV.

The Sister-in-law bought us a box last weekend. Duck Shing Ho sells 3 flavours - Original, butter and coconut. The coconut flavour is the most popular and is the flavour she got for us.

These egg rolls look very different from the Singapore/ Malaysia ones which are very crispy and thin. These are a lot thicker and hence more substantial. Crispy yet flaky, these aren't too sweet and taste very eggy, with a hint of coconut milk. The egg flavour is strong yet not too over powering. And it is not at all oily. I can understand why these egg rolls are so popular.

I won't say that these are the best egg rolls I've ever had (Sorry, I still prefer the ones my grandma made when I was young) but these are yummy and make great souvenirs for family and friends when visiting Hong Kong. See below for address and store hours.

德成號 Duck Shing Ho

北角渣華道64號地下
G/F., 64 Java Raod, North Point
Tel: (+852) 2570 5529/2571 5049
Opening Hours: Mon to Sat 930am to 700pm

Yuzu Tea and a Gourmet Food Store

Bon Bon Bon is a gourmet shop in Hong Kong owned by Wong Shueng Yu, a food connoisseur and author a series of cook books.

A lawyer by training, she quit her job to open the gourmet food store. Her taste for fine food is likely acquired from her mother and grandfather, the renowned philanthropist Tang King-po.

I try to visit her store at Central each time I go Hong Kong. Apart from all the excellent dried foods in her store, she also has sections of selected food imported from all over the world - fragrant soy sauce from Taiwan, excellent olive oil from Greece and what not. It was at Bon Bon Bon that I first discovered Milk Jam.

Last trip, I also bought a bottle of Yuzu Tea from her store. Now there isn't really anything special about Yuzu tea - you can find them at almost any supermarket. But this particular brand from Japan is really quite good. So good that I feel like spreading it on a piece of buttered toast to eat!

有食緣 Bon Bon Bon
香港中環皇后大道中31號 (At Central, not far from H&M)
TEL: +852-2523-6565

Beijing food in Hong Kong

"You want to have Beijing food in Hong Kong? Why?"

That was my first response when The Husband suggested we go to a Beijing restaurant in Hong Kong for a meal with our family. Then I gave in because, it has indeed been quite a while since I had Peking duck.. and even in Beijing, I don't often eat Beijing food since it really isn't that common.

This is a rather old restaurant in Tsim Sha Tsui. No fancy furnishings... rather tightly packed layout.. and very very crowded when we went there on a Thursday evening.

This restaurant is famous for its specialty -- honey-glazed Peking duck. The Peking duck is not that bad. It is the kind where the skin and meat of the duck is sliced and eaten together. Unfortunately, it is a far cry from my favourite Peking duck from Datong and hence, my cravings for Peking duck were not particularly satisfied by the meal.

Most of the other dishes we had though, were pretty good. I liked the "vegetarian goose", which is this roll of beancurd with vegetables inside. The stir-fried "crabmeat" dish was also pretty interesting. It wasn't really crab - just stir fried egg whites but oh...! They really do taste like crabmeat, especially with a light dose of Zhejiang vinegar.

At the end of the meal though, I realised although the restaurant serves Beijing food.. we didn't really have anything very Beijing.. apart from the duck, of course.

Stir-fried crabmeat that were really egg whites

Honey-glazed Peking duck - eaten with skin and 

meat instead of the 2 separated

Vegetarian goose - very yummy beancurd

Stir-fried pork with a sesame pocket - the sesame pockets

Stir-fried pork with a sesame pocket - the meat

Sugared apples

鹿鳴春飯店 Spring Deer

Address: 尖沙咀麼地道42號1樓
Tel: +852-2366-4012 / +852-2366-5839

Let's eat in Hong Kong - Homemade Soya Beancurd

We went to this shop at the Hong Kong island called Auntie Sweet, on our way for a haircut.

Auntie Sweet is a dessert shop and there was a picture of So Sze Wong (a pretty famous HK celebrity-cum-food-critic) recommending this place.

I used to watch her shows and I know that in general, she does not like desserts. If this is a place she recommends - it means that it has to be really good.

I ordered a house special - soya beancurd with durians.

Soyabean and durians are not things you would associate together. Surely the strong taste of durian would cancel out the more delicate taste of soyabeans? And the texture of the 2 put together did not seem appealing. But I ordered the dish nonetheless out of sheer curiousity.

It turned out to be rather interesting. Even though the durian taste was very strong, somehow the distinct flavour of the soyabean curd came through too. But it was just an interesting dessert.. not something I would crave for.

The Husband does not eat durian. So he ordered their homemade soya beancurd. It was really really good. 5 stars out of 5! The soya beancurd was made on the spot after we ordered it. It was silky soft... and so smooth it just glides through your mouth, into your throat.

As with many of the better beancurd in Hong Kong, they don't serve the beancurd with sugar syrup. Rather, they provide a box of red sugar. The red sugar melts upon contact with the piping hot beancurd and turns into this sticky thing that clings on to the beancurd. (Red sugar definitely works better than sugar syrup.. which glides off the beancurd too easily. Hm....I wonder why the soya bean stalls in Singapore don't use red sugar)

The soya beancurd came in a cute mini wooden barrel..

甜姨姨私房甜品 Auntie Sweet

Add: 96-A4 Electric Road, Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong
See here for link to openrice.com

Let's eat in Hong Kong - Dim Sum

Dim sum is one of the must have for every trip I make to Hong Kong.

My favourite is definitely dim sum at the Sheraton Hotel at Tsim Sha Tsui.

I didn't manage to go there this time. Instead, we went to a very old restaurant at Tsim Sha Tsui. It is a restaurant located at the basement of a building at Tsim Sha Tsui. According to The Husband, this restaurant has been there for a very long time.. as long as he can remember and THAT is a really long time.

The restaurant has an easy to remember name - Deng Hou.. or "Very Good Restaurant" in English. It is a really old place - the kind that looked like it had a glorious past. It has formal looking but old furnishings.. and very experienced/ elderly waitresses.

The food is not the best you can get but almost everything is above average.

I like the har-gau (prawn dumplings) the best. The skin is very thin.. yet stretchy and slightly chewy. The prawns are fresh, juicy and slightly crunchy. A good prawn dumpling is surely the test of a dim sum restaurant and in this aspect, Deng Hou passed with flying colours.

The other must try item is the pan-fried cheong-fan (rice noodle roll). The cheong-fan is nice and soft but pan-fried til crispy on the outside. Yummy!

Everything else we had was pretty good - although I think the steam buns were not that fantastic. The fillings were good but the skin was rather tough.

Our brunch for 3 turned out to be only about HKD150. That's less than SGD30! I was a little too stunned by the bill.. In Singapore, that'd be the price for 1 person.. and the food might not be as good.

頂好海鮮酒家 Very Good Restaurant

Address: 90 Nathan Road, Kowloon, Hong Kong‎
Tel: 2366 5660‎

Let's eat in Hong Kong - Afternoon Tea

For some reason, afternoon tea is a big thing in Hong Kong. At least that is the impression I get because almost every restaurant and tea shops offers some sort of afternoon tea sets.

The options available for afternoon tea is definitely much more in Hong Kong. Which partly explains why I was only in Hong Kong for four days and as you can see, I had 4 afternoon teas there this time. And one of the day was fully occupied by the wedding! (So I must have had afternoon tea twice on one of the days... Oh.. I don't know.. I can't remember.)

I like the fact that some tea shops in Hong Kong bother to make their own bread and pastry. And some change their afternoon tea sets every so often so that you get to have something different each time. There are also things on the menu that for some reason, shops in Singapore never seem to offer - like a very simple sandwich with omelette.

Left: Red bean drink with vanilla ice-cream and coffee jelly

Right: Grilled pork bun and curry fish balls (my favourite HK street snack)

Good Portuguese egg tart from Macau Restaurant. 

The iced coffee that they have is one of my favourites in HK!

A simple yet delicious afternoon tea - iced milk tea with egg

omelette sandwiches and piping hot egg tarts, fresh out of the oven!

No trip to Hong Kong is complete without a visit to Kam Hua, 

my favourite haunt for freshly baked pineapple buns and good milk tea. 

See a previous post about this place.. and try the breads out in your next trip to HK!