ode to an egg tart

Hot, silky custard
in a crumbly puff pastry -
an eggy delight.

Far better than
those cold, stodgy custard tarts
sold back in Britain.

golden gate dessert house

Sometimes I’m just really easily impressed. Or, maybe because it’s the fact that it’s Christmas soon and it’ll be the first time I won’t be spending it at home (in Hong Kong) with family that makes me hyper-appreciate things that remind me of the great 852 – like this simple dessert house on Shaftesbury Avenue. I’ve always lamented about the lack of good Chinese dessert places or HK/Taiwan-style teahouses in London – places like Hui Lau Shan and Honeymoon Desserts/Moon Kee (滿記), with their scrummy fresh fruit desserts, or even Saints Alp Teahouse or RBT and their bubble tea (tapioca pearl tea) and Taiwanese nibbles.

In Hong Kong, things never end after dinner out – we’d simply move on to a dessert place (because everyone ALWAYS has a second stomach for desserts!) and spend hours there chatting away while nibbling at our desserts and/or tea. While places like Cafe TPT and Cafe de Hong Kong do some desserts and bubble teas (the former has the best silken tofu dessert I have ever tasted in London to date), there was never a place purely dedicated to gluttonous consumption of sweets that I knew of. So, I’m probaby really late in the game with this post, but Golden Gate Dessert House definitely fulfils my criteria for a great dessert destination – it’s cheap, the cakes and desserts look great, and they do a myriad of drinks that I’d find not out of place in a menu back in Hong Kong. They had sago desserts (though, unfortunately, not immersed in coconut milk), gui ling go (herbal turtle jelly), mango pancakes, and soft, ethreal sponge cakes in a myriad of flavours and colours – we had the black forest, and a matcha version.

Along with the obligatory bubble teas, they had some perennial favourites such as HK-style milk tea, and Milo (a chocolatey drink that I recall from my childhood!); some snacks available included another HK favourite – curry fishballs!

The style of cakes reminded me of a fabulous place in Taipei (but originally from Japan) called Afternoon Tea, which I fell in love with. I adore such light, cloudy cakes that just feel like they’re about to float away!

The waitresses were really charming and made us feel very welcome. I could see myself coming back here often, for that essential post-dinner dessert and drink… It certainly made me feel like I was back home, if only for a little while.

Golden Gate Dessert House
110 Shaftesbury Avenue
London W1D 5EJ
020 7494 3840

gluttonous glutinous rice

Every culture has, in some form or another, a form of comfort food. Stodgy, filling dishes that you curl up with on the couch while watching some form of escapist entertainment. I have my share of favourite comfort foods – congee, mashed potatoes, and creamy mushroom soup served with saltines- but right now my number one tummy warmer is ‘Chinese sticky rice’, or ‘loh mai fan‘ (糯米飯). It’s wonderfully filling and all the dried ingredients that go into it pack great punches of concentrated flavour that is also infused into the rice as it cooks. The moment it’s ready, you lift up the lid from the rice cooker (the rice cooker is crucial!) and the wonderfully aromatic steam wafts up into your face. Any thought of the cold and the gloom outside immediately takes a backseat.

are you in the mood for love?

Goldfinch Restaurant may not be a familiar name to most, but perhaps its dimly lit interiors, smoked mirrors and characteristic leather booths will stir up memories of one of Wong Kar-wai’s most famous films, In the Mood for Love, where the small, intimate restaurant is the unique setting for So Lai-chen (Maggie Cheung) and Chow Mo-wan’s (Tony Leung) first dinner together.

It can be said that restaurants like Goldfinch laid the foundations of Hong Kong’s first ‘fusion’ movement; it opened in the 1960’s when the economy was only starting to see some light, and dining out was more of a luxury. With a nod to Hong Kong’s colonial identity, restauranteurs and chefs began integrating more ‘Western’ style dishes into their menus, such as steak and pasta, while adding a Chinese twist – thus serving ’see yau sai chaan’ (literally ’soy sauce Western meals’), the colloquial description that has come to characterise such unique eateries.

harrrroooo hong kong!

(You know you’ve been watching Heroes too long when you start speaking like Hiro)

Clearly, you can see that I’m back in Hong Kong, and loving it. While Oasis Hong Kong Airlines’ flight menus left a lot to be desired (slimy spaghetti? Lukewarm tea? A travesty!), it did not matter for 11 hours and a bus ride later, I was home. We had a platter of garlic and ginger stir-fried crabs (juicy and meaty), followed by an extremely fat steamed fish with scallions, ginger and drizzled with light soy sauce and a splash of hot oil. Fresh seafood at its best, simply cooked.

Lunch today though was what you see above – lovely beef brisket noodles at the HK-style cafe downstairs from our apartment complex (like many HK residences, there is a mini-mall lurking underneath all the buildings). Mom and I sat ourselves down in a yellow plastic booth, and ordered the above food for $52HKD (£3.30). I had a set meal of beef brisket noodles, with a side of fresh choi sum and a cold drink, for $34HKD (£2.10). My mom simply had wonton noodles, for $18HKD (£1.13) – the exchange rate always amazes me. You’d barely get a drink for £1.13 in Chinatown (or anywhere for that matter)!

Whenever I feel lazy I’ll just go downstairs to this place and order noodles to takeaway (they put the noodles, dry, in a styrofoam box, and the broth separate in a container). Their noodles have improved since the last time I went, which would be back in January. They’ve managed to make it thinner and deliciously al dente (if there is one thing I cannot stand, that’s soggy noodles, and that’s why I usually go for mein instead of hor fun). The beef brisket was soft and tender and mellllllted in my mouth in flavourful chunks. The only complaint I have is that they tend to make their broth a bit on the salty side – but nothing that can’t be remedied with my ice cold lemon tea ;)

Tonight more goodies await as my dad is currently pottering around the kitchen making wintermelon soup (perfect for cooling down in this hot and humid weather), steamed pork with preserved vegetables (my favourite dish of all time), and stir-fried pea shoots. Tomorrow, I shall be heading to Park Lane hotel with my mom for their fabulous appetiser buffet + main course lunch. Another great thing about HK are the buffets… while buffets in London may conjur up horrible memories (at least for me) of overcooked chow mein sweating away in massive metal containers under burning hot lights and acid-orange sweet-and-sour chicken, buffets here are a much nicer affair (wait till I attack the sashimi platters!).