Mother's Day cake range by Maxim's

HAPPY MOTHER's DAY!!!



Maxim's have launched a good choice of cakes for the big day.
My favourite is the Diamond Box which is a strawberry cake with a beautiful box and a white chocolate shaped diamond on top with flowers beside it.




The next on the list in terms of taste and appearance is the Flower Cake and the Sunflower Black forest.



I like the flower on the cross section when you slice the Flower Cake and the Black forest is always a popular flavour.



Then there is the sweet Macaron Tower or the Flower rainbow cake to choose from.



For mango lovers, there is the Sunflower mango crispy or the Rose blossom for rose lovers.




If all those choices were not enough, there are also two more fruity and summery cakes for energetic mums:







For down to earth mums, there are Chiffon cakes and for mums with green fingers they will love the Tiramisu Garden!!



It appears that Maxim's was a popular choice for the Mothers day cake.



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Diamond box:
Thanks to Maxim's PR for sending me a redemption card for the Diamond box.


Basically there was a strawberry chocolate base that was part of the bottom half of the pillow, in the middle it was soft cake with fresh strawberry slices and strawberry mousse.


The mousse was light complemented by the strawberry slices.
On top of the cake, it was decorated with a pretty jewellery box containing a diamond made from white chocolate.


★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★

Purple sweet potato icecream at DK

The Dessert Kitchen (Tsim Sha Tsui)

TRIED THIS BEFORE THE GROUP BUY DEAL WHICH WAS WHY I COULD DINE IN.

To be honest, this desserterie has been opened for a long time but non of their desserts captivated me until now.

Currently in HK, there are about 10 shops that do nitrogen icecream.

The most successful one is Lab Made which was later copied by Tutti melon, and now this dessert place has it too.
The others ones are served in high end restaurants such as AVA Splash.

Previously I have attempted to try Tutti melon but they ran out of nitrogen which was such a joke.

Anyway, at Dessert Expert, I was lucky because they had two flavours I wanted to try which are rotated fortnightly.
[Flavours that they had: black sesame and tofu, caramel pudding, white peach, dark chocolate, Okinawa brown sugar, purple sweet potato, cherry tomato and yoghurt and sweetcorn with lava salt.]

[at the time I dined, I did not know there was a special offer on Yahoo which was $20 for two scoops making nitrogen icecream DIRT CHEAP.
http://hk.deals.yahoo.com/hong-kong/offer/148353

I paid $70 for two scoops on this visit.
Compared to Labmade, it is so much cheaper so lets find out about the quality.

As with all nitrogen foods there is a risk of oesophagus burns like the teen girl who loses stomach after drinking liquid nitrogen cocktail in the UK.
So far there are no reported cases in Hong Kong yet.

It appears that they were using Nitrogen to make the icecream before the group buying offer but when I went during the group buying redemption period they just scooped the icecream from somewhere!!


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purple sweet potato:



It was really nice with a piece of dried sweet potato and sweet potato puree on top.
The sweet potato cracker was chewy and not crispy and the sweet potato puree was velvety but tasted artificial.
Anyway, the icecream was good because it was not too sweet but I did not like the artificial sweet potato taste which ruined it.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
cherry tomato and yoghurt:



Surprisingly this was delicious by Hong Kong Standards because most places make savoury items taste sweet.
I went to Ice Cream Gallery for their savoury icecreams but they turned out to be sweet and disappointing.
This flavour was really nice and tasted how I expected it to be.
It was garnished with sundried tomatoes and croutons which reminded me of tomato flavoured icecream soup.
I loved the taste, it was savoury with a hint of tangyness from the tomato which matched perfectly with the yoghurt.
The croutons and sundried tomatoes went well with this flavour because they were related and you could associate it with Italian food or even tomato soup.
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Photos of the desserterie:



Bird's eye custard powder!!


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Anna Sui Sweet purple potato icecream

Lab Made Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream Laboratory (Tsim Sha Tsui)

Went to the TST branch to get the Anna Sui flavour and the shop was plastered all over with Anna Sui.

The aprons and icecream machinery were also plastered with Anna Sui too.


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Anna sui:

I was surprised it did not taste as good as I expected because I had a crappy Sweet potato nitrogen icecream at Dessert Kitchen and it had a stronger sweet potato flavour with real sweet potato puree in it.
In got a bit too sweet towards the end and I did not like the pieces of savoury potato crisps in the icecream.
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New coffees launched at Bei Coffee

Went into Sai Kung again because I was bored and managed to try a new coffee and their apple crumble!

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Photos of the coffee joint:


Environmentally friendly tissue.

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apple pie:

I was quite surprised the apple pie was freshly made, the apples were sliced when I ordered it.

There was a hint of coffee in the apple crumble because they like to add coffee to their food and the apples were crisp and tangy so the apple crumble was not too sweet.
The crumble had a nice buttery smell without being too heavy.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Coffee with Earl Grey:

This coffee will be launched in May and basically it has earl grey in it.
As a non coffee drinker, I would prefer less coffee and more tea, but it was not that bitter.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Ironman coffee:

Video of the coffee being hand dripped by Bei Coffee's Michael shows the new coffee that will be launched which claims to be a strong one.
The rate of the water being pour in affects the taste.
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The third coffee that will be launched is the Coffee with Rose which would be interesting but I don't like rose.

For more information of this Coffee shop, please see:

https://www.facebook.com/bei.coffeekan

Thai fusion in Hong Kong

In most peoples mind, Thai food is just Tom Yum Kung and green papaya but Bug and Bee is the new trend of Thai food from Thailand.

A few years ago Hong Kong was not ready for Thai fusion when it was commonly available in Thailand.

Apart from Bug and Bee, there are other similar restaurants that do Thai fusion such as Greyhound, Glasshouse and many more.

The Bug and Bee menu in Thailand has a bigger range, while the Hong Kong one does not serve all those items.

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Curry crab crepe:


This was curry crab served on a crepe.
There were lots of chinese celery, green peppers and real crab meat.


The taste was amazing because there was so much crabmeat in it that was clean and did not have any crabshells.
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Spinach crepe lasagne in Tomato sauce:



This was quite cool!! A crepe lasagne with spinach and lasagne sheet layers.
I just felt that the tomato sauce was too sweet.
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Salmon and basil quiche:

When it came, the quiche looked flat like a pizza.

The quiche was quite nice and not very eggy, however the salad was not that pleasant because there was so much garlic in the dressing.
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The customer service could be improved because I went there when they newly opened and they did not even give me a free drinks coupon for my next visit.
On my other visit, they only gave me the free drinks coupon because when I checked the bill I found out that I was over charged as there was a bug on their POS system.
The decor and location could be better.
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Bug and Bee

G/F to 2/F., 456 Jaffe Road,Causeway Bay

Great baos

Bao Wow (Wan Chai)

Thanks to Openricer 山區麵包王 for inviting me to this tasting.

Since my first visit it was good to see new baos on the menu and improved taro fries.

Here was what we tried:
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Kimchili fries:

The fries were just as delicious as poutine but with a little Korean spicy kick to it.
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Coconut curry bao:


This was a new flavour which was not on the menu previously.
I loved the crispy onions which went well with the curry.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Taro fries:

The taro fries were delicious and addictive.
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Kimchi bulgogi:
grilled sliced beef, kimchi, bean sprouts, homemade bulgogi sauce

(did not try this.)
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Bao fries:
with ovaltine condensed milk

The bao fries were too oily for my liking.
It would be great if they made mini baos and fry them lightly so that they would be crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.
Little round baos would visually look cute too.
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Original gua bao:
Braised pork belly, chinese relish, cilantro, crushed peanuts and red sugar.

The original was really tasty with a good balance of cilantro so that the pork belly did not feel heavy.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★

A little green at this stage

Greenland Corner (North Point)

Thanks to BKT Group for giving me a $200 cash coupon to try their food.
Greenland Corner is located next to Kung Fu dim sum near North Point MTR station.



Most of the staff were nice but one was pushy.

Here was what I tried:
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Starfruit drink:

A bit too sweet.
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Vegetarian tofu duck:

This was quite nice but there was too much sauce on top which was too sweet.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Crispy squid:

The squid was either overdone or the frying oil needs to be changed.
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Pork chops with cumin:

When it was brought over, there was a lovely strong smell of cumin but when you ate it there was no cumin taste at all.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Beef shin noodles:

The noodles were ok but the broth could taste stronger.
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Pork trotters:

The pork trotters had a strong smell and they were very salty.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★