It's almost a year in the making and I have been patiently waiting for them to release more information, opening date, location etc. and finally, they unveiled their opening date (7 Jan) and a number of creations inspired by the local market including the lemon tea box and pineapple bun via the social media. The new creations were quite a pleasant surprise. We've known all along that he won't be bringing along his cronut with him to Hong Kong but to have so much research done on Hong Kong's food culture with so little time, it showed that he really cares about this market. That's great to see (At least I didn't see he did the same for his Tokyo launch).
As a huge fan of his, I decided to drop by during their opening week. Surprisingly, no long lineup for takeaway orders. Just around 15 to 20 customers in front of me which isn't too shabby considering it's their first week of operation.
With nothing else better to do while waiting in line, I started randomly snapping photos. First, it's Dominique's signature Kouign Amann (DKA). This looks like a box of abalone from our local "hoi mei" shop!
Speaking of adapting to the local market, Chef Dominique has tweaked his original Milk Shot by incorporating some local twist to it. In comes the Hong Kong Milk Tea Cookie Shot, which comes with these cute little Yakult-shaped cookie cups! More on it later.
I am almost at the finish line and at this point, I was informed by the staff that whatever left in the display were the only ones available for the rest of the day. If we were looking for their signature pastries (again lemon tea box and pineapple bun), thanks for coming!
Let's hope some of these are still around when it's my turn.
I was hoping I could share a photo with one of my favorite patissiers in the world, Chef Dominique but when I was still waiting to place my order, he had already taken off, presumably for afternoon tea.
Plain croissant ($28) - I was a little disappointed with this. For one, it looked awful. It didn't taste poorly but it also didn't blow me away.
Almond Croissant ($38) - Much better than the plain croissant. The texture was very nice, both crispy and flaky on the outside while soft and moist inside. I still like the ones served at b. patisserie in Seoul more but this wasn't bad.
Soup Dumpling (小籠飽) ($62) - Sadly, only 4 types of pastries were left when I was up and I decided to take two of those home for scrutiny. The first one was their "Xiao Long Bao" shaped mango vanilla mousse cake.
This tasted a bit like a Chinese egg custard bun (奶黄包). Just okay if you ask me. I thought they tried too hard with the local twist with this one.
Thousand Year Egg (皮蛋) ($58) - This was once an elegant hazelnut coffee tart that looked very much like a Chinese Thousand Year egg with pickle on top. One word of advice if you want to order this, do not attempt to order it as takeaway cuz there's no way it would arrive home safely in one piece. I tried very hard to piece everything together and this was the best I could do.
It was way better than the previous mango vanilla mousse cake. The hazelnut cream, coffee jelly and chocolate really worked nicely together. I won't mind having this again in the future.
Hong Kong milk tea Cookie Shot (港式奶茶曲奇杯) ($42 per piece) - Last but not least, the Cookie Shot with local style milk tea.
I didn't have the benefit of having the original Milk Shot before so I had no clue how this fares with the original version.
In my opinion, it was one of those things that looked good on your Instagram account but in terms of taste, I thought the cookie cup and milk tea kind of worked individually rather than harmonize each other. But that's just my humble opinion.
I was absolutely gutted for missing out on the lemon tea box and pineapple bun. After checking their opening time (10am!), I am determined to come back early and often to make sure that I get my hands on both of these goodies, perhaps as soon as this coming weekend.
Food Rating: 5.5/10
Price: $$$
Address: Shop OT G63A, G/F, Ocean Terminal, Harbour City, 3-27 Canton Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong
Closest Metro Station: Tsim Sha Tsui
Tel: +852 2613-8618
Website: www.dangwenli.com
Opening Hours: 10:00am - 9:30pm (Mon - Thu), 10:00am - 10:00pm (Sat - Sun)
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