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

Gobi Dessert, not Gobi Desert

Ting recommended this place and Petunia said she has been there 5 time since.

How could I not visit this place?

So The Husband and I decided to skip lunch yesterday and go straight for desserts.

The menu is pretty limited but everything looked good. I wanted to try the souffle and creme brulee as well, but in the end I opted for Black Forest Torte. The Husband chose the Passion Mango Crepe Stack.

I quite liked the Black Forest Torte. The vanilla ice-cream was very good - strong in vanilla taste and silky smooth. The cake was pretty nice. The chocolate layer was interesting - it's baked but tasted like it was too light to be cake. I found out later that it is actually baked mousse. The baked mousse and creme anglaise give the dessert an interesting light texture. Personally, I felt a little more contrast in texture would have made this dessert a lot more memorable.

Unfortunately, I didn't quite like the Passion Mango Crepe Stack. The crepes were nice and thin but they were layered with meringue that was overly sweet (as all meringues are) and passion fruit cream that was overly sour. The the middle of the dessert was some mixed berry compote which I quite liked. The sorbet was also very good, so the dessert wasn't that bad after all. But it wouldn't be something I'd order again.

As I left the shop, I asked myself if I would come back.

Hm.. at $9 - $12 a dessert, Gobi Cakes isn't exactly cheap. But it is a nice place to hang out for tea or desserts after dinner.. and they serve freshly baked souffle, which I love, so I guess I'd be going back again to try a couple more desserts before deciding if I like the place.

Gobi Cakes

Add: 350 Joo Chiat Road, Singapore 427598
Tel: 6345 2127