Showing posts with label strawberries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label strawberries. Show all posts

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Wagashi Wagashi Wagashi Wagashi @ 瀰月屋

Saw pictures of this place, and was very fascinated by it, especially a place just for Japanese desserts.

The usual dessert places offer Chinese dessert, Taiwanese snowflake ice and now Froyo, but solely Japanese Dessert is just the beginning.

The interior of the place is decorated with various Japanese pictures, ornaments and an old styled TV.

When you sit down, you are provided with some plum drink.

The menu is printed on thin sheets of paper, the ones used for those traditional daily tear off chinese calendars.
On the menu there are six sections, four with different Japanese dessert categories, and the lower two boxes for set meals.

For locals, even though the menu is in chinese, it is quite hard to read, because the fonts are rather weird and the terminology is authentic Japanese, so unless you know your Japanese desserts, you will need an introduction from the staff, and for non-Chinese like me, I have to reply on the reviews and Openrice pictures.
So I shall attempt in explaining as much as possible although some of the information about the Japanese desserts could be wrong because I got the information from the web.

On the menu there are basically 4 different categories:

sweet soup:a choice of hot or cold except for the burdock.
Purple sweet potato soup
Red beans sweet soup
Green beans sweet soup
Burdock in hokkaido milk
Pumpkin sweet soup paste
Black sesame sweet soup paste
Chestnut sweet soup paste
Lotus seeds sweet soup

Japanese sweets (Japanese sweets)
Daifuku
Dango
Wagashi
Tofu
Kuzumochi
Grilled chestnuts/sweet potato
Cloth twisted sweet potato

Drinks:
Fruit drinks
Kids beer
Green tea with milk
Green tea with milk and wheat
Plum drink
Grapefruit tea
Teas: various including floral and earl grey

Western Japanese desserts:
Mousse
Jelly cup
Milk pudding
Egg pudding
Apple pie
Popcorn

You can order the above items a la carte or order the sets for one, I prefer the sets because they cost around $4x dollars where as the single items cost around $3x and you can sample different items.
As well as the one-person sets, they also do sets for 2-4 people.

For the one-person set, there are three sets, I liked the sets 912 and 913 (the sets have a chinese name, but to make things simple, I have just mentioned the set number).

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Set 911

A choice of Kuzumochi or Daifuki
Sweet soup
Wagashi, cloth wrapped sweet potato or grilled purple potato
tea cloth twistd sweet potato and kuzumochi

Anyway the 911 is a bit Chinesey, because it contains a sweet soup, the reason I tried it was because of the Satsumaimo Chakin shibori (sweet potato twisted in a cloth).
The other two items that I ordered were the burdock in hokkaido milk and kuzumochi.
The burdock in hokkaido milk just tasted like warmed milk with burdock, and the kuzumochi tasted like sweet tough kanten jelly with soy bean powder, they gave a mix of brown sugar flavoured kuzumochi and original kuzumochi to let me compare the taste.
I felt that the brown sugar one tasted better and went well with the soy bean powder.

Kuzumochi are chewy cakes made of kuzuko. Kuzuko is the starch powder made from kuzu or kudzu plant root. It's used for thickening sauce or making cool desserts in Japanese cooking. Kuzumochi are semi transparent and often served with kuromitsu (brown sugar syrup/powder) and kinako (soy bean flour).

Satsumaimo Chakin shibori - Chakin shibori is a cooking method for forming mashed ingredients in chakin (tea cloth). As shibori means wringing in Japanese, a small amount of mashed satsumaimo (sweet potato) is wrapped in thin cloth or plastic wrap and is formed by twisting the cloth or plastic wrap, leaving a patterned surface.
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Set 912
Dango (a choice sesame, almond or pumpkin sauce)
Tofu (a choice sesame, almond or pumpkin sauce)
Daifuku ( choice of strawberry or chestnut)

This set was fuss free, because the first two items were fixed, all you had to do was choose a sauce, all these three items were my favourites.
For the dango and tofu, the choice of sauces were sesame, almond and pumpkin.
Since the tofu flavour is not that strong I chose almond, and for the dango, I chose pumpkin, and then for the daifuku I chose strawberry.

Dango is a Japanese dumpling made from mochiko (rice flour). It is sticky and filling either served on skewers glazed with a sweet coating and grilled or served in sweet soups.
The dango here was so nice, the sugar coating on it was caramelised and crunchy, best of all it wasnt too sweet. The caramelised sugar formed a shell around it. The dango was nice and chewy, the pumpkin sauce was good too, not sweet and it had the pumpkins natural savory taste.

The tofu here was smooth and firm, however its texture was slightly like pudding, I felt that it may have contained gelatin.
Anyway the almond sauce wasnt that strong, so both the tofu and almond could be tasted.

Daifuku is a Japanese confectionery consisting of a small round mochi (glutinous rice cake) stuffed with sweet filling, most commonly anko, sweetened red bean paste made from azuki beans. Daifuku comes in many varieties. The most common is white-, pale green-, or pale pink-colored mochi filled with anko. These come in two sizes, one approximately the diameter of a half-dollar coin, the other palm-sized. Some versions contain whole pieces of fruit, mixtures of fruit and anko, or crushed melon paste. Nearly all daifuku are covered in a fine layer of corn or taro starch to keep them from sticking to each other, or to the fingers. Some are covered with confectioner's sugar or cocoa powder.

However the filling in this one was green bean, and the centre was a fresh strawberry.
I was expecting myself to hate it, but I loved it, the reason purely because the sweetness was just right, and the strawberry was fresh.
I have had really disgusting ones at Ichiban and Sogo which were as sweet as syrup and the texture is not as fresh as the ones here.
______________________________

Set 913
Pudding (choice of egg or milk)
Fruit cup
Drinks (choice of drinks from the drinks selection)

I did not get to try this one, but I will definitely come back for it next time!!

______________________________

I also ordered the tokoroten noodles, because I wanted to have fun extruding them using a tokoroten-tsuki (extruder for tokoroten).
The extruder for tokoroten consists of a oblong box shape with openings at both ends. One end has a wire grid, a large block of tokoroten is placed in the other opening and a piston is used to push it through the grid. The tokoroten-tsuki is also known as the ten-tsuki.

The tokoroten texture was like the chinese agar, but slightly firmer. It was slightly sour in taste, but the sweetness of the green tea evened it out, and the coldness of the green tea made the noodles even more icier. The green tea was kept cold with ice-cubes in the bowl.

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I have been there twice, the first visit I got free popcorn, the second visit a magazine was doing a feature there.
I will be back for the apple pie, and steamed milk pudding, and the kid's beer which is apple juice in a cute beer bottle.

Mystery mag shoot, which u will c wen published

Satsumaimo Chakin shibori (sweet potato twisted in a cloth).
 
burdock in hokkaido milk and kuzumochi







Almond Tofu




07/01/2011
瀰月屋 Mitsukiya
天后清風街15號
15 Tsing Fung Street Street, Tin Hau
https://www.openrice.com/zh/hongkong/review/wagashi-wagashi-wagashi-wagashi-e2141493

Pretty patisserie @ Pantry bread and pastries

There are a lot of high end patisseries around, and there was one cake that really drew me here, the apple bavarois.
Previously I had a hazelnut bavarois at Chez Patrick Deli.
It seems to be spelt bava"r"ois but at Chez Patrick it is spelt bava"v"ois, but then Chez Patrick shouldnt be wrong as they have native French chefs there.

The display had a nice selection of cakes; I couldn’t decide between the carrot and yoghurt and the chocolate and raspberry, but in the end I picked the chocolate and raspberry.
The cakes that I got were the apple bavarois, strawberry macaroon and the chocolate and raspberry cake.

During transportation, the strawberry macaroon did a roly poly somersault and the top broke off and went backside down, while the apple bavarois skidded to the side and the chocolate and raspberry just fainted sideways on the apple bavarois toppling all the berry decorations all over the place!
Despite the disaster, all turned out well, all of them were delicious.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Strawberry macaroon:In the patisserie, this was the prettiest of them all, it looked like a pink éclair, a macaroon extruded instead of the shape of a circle. There were five layers. I was expecting the macaroon layer to be extremely sweet but it wasn’t, the texture was slightly soft.
In between the macaroon layers were strawberry cream and strawberry jelly, fresh raspberries, which was very refreshing for a macaroon without that cloyingly sweet taste. Best of all the raspberries in the cake were kept very fresh.
The strawberry cream was intense in colour and it was interesting they had fresh raspberries as a layer when it was a strawberry macaroon.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Apple bavarois:The taste reminded me of the apple yoghurt I had at Starbucks, very refreshing, with light whipped apple mousse and pieces of apple with a crisp texture.
There was a light green shell covering the cake, it was a bit like white chocolate but flavoured gently with apple. In the centre there was apple jelly and pieces of apple. I also found pieces of orange bits which were peach or mango, but not strong enough to be tasted.
Apple yoghurt at starbucks: http://www.openrice.com/restaurant/commentdetail.htm?commentid=2094952
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Chocolate and raspberry:A layer of thin chocolate sauce covered this cake and in-between were layers of chocolate cream and a layer of raspberry jelly.
The raspberry could have been strong, but the jelly layer tasted similar to the macaroon one.
The cake base was slightly hard though. All the fruit cakes had a fruit flavoured jelly layer in them, next time I am going to try the carrot one because of the yoghurt layer on top. The cakes were all at the right sweetness, which was really good because you can try several cakes at one time without feeling sickly.

Desserts buffet at $98 per person @ Kaneda

I have been wanting to go to Ant One’s for the dessert buffet, but it is only available in the evenings, however when I walked past Kaneda, I saw the dessert buffet for only $98 per person including bottomless drinks.

There are a total of 22 desserts to choose from which is about the same as Ant One, however Ant One offers Chinese desserts as well. Although Kaneda doesn’t have Chinese desserts such as fried sweet dumplings, it was not a loss to me since I do not like Chinese desserts. The items that I wanted to try at Ant One were also available at Kaneda.

The desserts available were:

1) Chocolate cake with molten chocolate filling 2) Baked walnut cake 3) Italian cheese cake 4) Mango puff pastry 5) Green tea and red bean mousse 6) Strawberry pancake with custard cream 7) Ice-cream skewer 8) Serradura pudding 9) Creme brulee 10) Honey milk pudding 11) Apple crumble 12) Mango souffle 13) Mango pudding 14) Fruit profiteroles 15) Banana pancake with custard 16) Baked egg white with almond 17) Almond sorbet 18) Assorted cakes of the day 19) Chocolate milk pudding
20) Various ice-creams 21) Mango pancake with custard 22) Strawberry yoghurt mousse
23) Blueberry cheesecake nice sour berries 24) Mango cheesecake 25) Mango cake

1) Chocolate cake with molten chocolate filling
This was piping hot and the size of the ice-cream scoop and chocolate cake was super mini, it was slightly smaller than a tablespoon.
Super cute mini chocolate filled cake
Super cute mini chocolate filled cake
 
2) Baked walnut cake
This was not too sweet, nice and chewy, it was made of 90% walnuts and sweet syrup.
Walnut pie
Walnut pie
 
3) Italian cheese cake
Didn’t try.

4) Mango puff pastry
This was layers of puff pastry sandwiched with custard cream topped with mangoes.

5) Green tea and red bean mousse
didnt try

6) Strawberry pancake with custard cream
Didnt try, but tried the banana pancake.

7) Ice-cream skewer
Didn’t try

8) Serradura pudding
This tasted like the usual serradura pudding, very creamy.
L:honeymilkpudding R:sawdust pudding
L:honeymilkpudding R:sawdust pudding
 
9) Creme brulee
This tasted how it should

10) Honey milk pudding
Nice and creamy but the taste of honey was light

11) Apple crumble
Nice, but too many raisins.

12) Mango souffle
My favourite, but slightly too sweet, there were small pieces of real mango fruit
mango souffle
mango souffle
 
13) Mango pudding
Didn’t try

14) Fruit profiteroles
Didnt try

15) Banana pancake with custard
The custard cream in it tasted fake and floury
banana pancake
banana pancake
 
16) Baked egg white with almond
Tasted ok.

17) Almond sorbet
This was my favourite, nutty with plenty of almonds and a rich cake base
Almond sorbet
Almond sorbet
 
18) Assorted cakes of the day

19) Chocolate milk pudding
didnt try

20) Various ice-creams
didnt try

21) Mango pancake with custard

22) Strawberry yoghurt mousse
Another one of my favourites, the strawberry flavouring wasn’t fake and it was refreshing with the yogurt ingredient.

23) Blueberry cheesecake
nice sour berries
blueberry cheesecake
blueberry cheesecake
 
24) Mango cheesecake
Didnt try.

25) Mango cake
L:mango puff R:mango cake
L:mango puff R:mango cake
 
The desserts were served in tiny cups and dishes, there was a fresh plastic spoon every time, which not that environmentally friendly.

There were metal cutleries too, but the spoon couldn’t fit in the tiny dessert cups.

Improvements:
It would be good if there was a side plate to rest my used cutlery rather than directly on the table.
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