A real mooncake at Twelve cupcakes

Every year, Chinese people celebrate moon festival with moon cakes.

Although it is called a mooncake, it does not actually contain any cake because it is filled with lotus paste and egg yolk.

The mooncakes here are going to go down well with Westerners and people who do not like the traditional mooncakes.

There are four cupcakes in the box, each one is decorated with moon festival related chocolate plaques and comes with Twinnings fruit tea for $190.

The cupcake flavours are:
Cranberry and chocolate
Strawberry and vanilla
Expresso
Earl Grey

The sachets of tea are:
chamomile, honey and vanilla
hibiscus and rosehip
Passionfruit and mango
strawberry and mango

If you order before 31st August, it costs $161.5 and $180.5 before 7th September including Two x 1 free cupcake coupon.

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Earl Grey:

As soon as it was sliced, you could smell the earl grey.
It was moist, soft and sweet infused with earl grey tea leaves in the cake.

In the middle, it is orange to mimic the yolk.
I paired this cake with the strawberry and mango tea which had a sweet scent.
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Strawberry and vanilla:

The vanilla cake was rich and buttery which was best paired with Rosehip and Hibiscus.

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Expresso:


The expresso is great for coffee lovers because it had rich expresso buttercream frosting.
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Cranberry and chocolate:


This was my favourite because it had a strong taste of cocao decorated with chocolate buttercream and dried cranberries.
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www.twelvecupcakes.com.hk

Exclusive cucumber gelato flavour by XTC

Attended the launch of Dettol's all day fresh cucumber bodywash where you can get free cucumber gelato exclusively by XTC if you download the 「All Day Fresh」app to make a movie and share it on Facebook.

The nifty app is quite cool because it has Priscilla Wong in the background of the video where you can pretend to interactive with her.

The gelato booth will be outside the world trade centre between 12pm to 8pm on the 3rd of August.
If you miss the booth, you can simply share the video on Facebook and get a coupon for the gelato.




Photobombed by the guy in the middle!



I tried the cucumber gelato and it was refreshing and cooling with real pieces of cucumber in it.
The sweetness was just right.



XTC Gelato (Tsim Sha Tsui)

Refreshing yoghurt cakes

I must say I am impressed with these new yoghurt cakes. (British spelling : yoghurt).


There are two flavours:
Passionfruit and mango

Mixed berry

Each cake comes with fruit syrup which you pour on top.

I was lucky to try both flavours because my friend wanted to try the mango one and I wanted to try the berry one.
Again, it depends on your preference which one your likely going to like.
For me, I preferred the berry one.

It is recommended that you pour the sauces on top of the cake, remove the film and let it drizzle over the side.

We did just that for the mango because my friend loves mango.


Inside this cake, there was fresh mango, soft cake with mango and passionfruit mousse on the outside.
The flavours in this cake was strong and refreshing with tones of sweet mango and passionfruit.

Then we tried the Berry yoghurt cake which I thought was the best.









I loved the pure white colour of the yoghurt mousse.
The soft cake and light yoghurt mousse were just delicious enhanced by the berry sauce.
In the middle, there were more berries to give it flavour.


To summarize, these cakes are fun and delicious because you can decide how much sauce to put on it.

Durian icecream blind tasting : Musang King

Attended a blind testing for Durian icecream.

There were eight different brands that we tried and we wrote down our comments on the sheet as shown.



After all eight were tested, our sheets were collected and the results were revealed.

For this particular icecream, my comments were:
Natural durian taste with a medium aftertaste.
The texture was smooth but slightly icy.
The colour of this icecream was creamy light yellow.

I will definitely go and try their desserts because they have just opened a branch at Causeway bay so you don't have to travel all the way to Yuen Long!!
Hurrah!

Musang King (Causeway Bay)

Venturing into Shamshuipo for food

Whenever people go to Shamshuipo, all they have is rice rolls, noodles with liver and tossed noodles.
Shamshuipo is also famous at night and there are many places to go if you know where.

On this visit, I joined a group of locals because I would not know how to get there and what to order.

The restaurant is quite secluded which explains why there are often celebrities dining there.

On the menu, there is a wide variety including retro dishes and new dishes with pictures.

Here was what we had.

Started off with a light but filling soup filled with wholesome goodies such as mustard greens, tofu and meat.
I loved the tofu and greens which were nourishing and the broth was nice with a hint of mustard green and soya bean taste.

Then came the claypot of glutinous rice with preserved meats.
Usually preserved meats give off a strange waxy smell but this did not so I really enjoyed it and each grain of rice was distinct and al-dente.

Then we tried chicken served in three different styles.
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1.「白切雞」
Steamed plain chicken

The plain chicken was great because you could taste the natrual taste of the chicken and chicken skin.
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2.「沙彊雞」
Steamed chicken with ginger puree

This was similar to the first but the sauce gave it an extra kick because there was some chili in it as well as ginger so the chicken was really tasty.
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3.「土匪雞」
Bandit chicken (roast chicken)

As a Westerner, this was my favourite.
It was perfectly roasted chicken with crispy skin.
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Overall, the chicken had the texture and taste that chickens should have because they have been frozen at -65 degrees during the crucial 48 hours as soon as they have been slaughtered which preserves the taste and texture.
According to the staff, the chickens come from a town called Humen in Dong Guan and are selected for consumption when they are 3 months old and weigh 1.25kg (2.5catty).
They are corn fed and have not been administered antiobiotics.

大中華飯店 (長沙灣)

Taiwanese and Spanish flair

Espuma is an interesting place to relax, the food and drinks have a nice Taiwanese touch with waffles and fruit teas yet they serve Spanish Tapas as well.






Unfortunately I was having dinner elsewhere that night so I settled for Jasmine orange tea and the Japanese mochi waffles.
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Japon:


I had to try this because it was made with a mochi base which is why the waffle is white and pretty.
It was served with so many sides: red bean sauce, icecream, custard paste and syrup.
The waffles tasted nice on its own and I loved the chewy texture due to the mochi.
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Fresh orange juice with Jasmine tea:


This is the best fruit tea because you can actually taste the fresh orange juice as well as the Jasmine.
I am definitely coming back for this drink because it is not too sweet.
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Coming back soon for Tapas!!!

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Espuma:

2/F H8 building

Hau Fuk road