Gongau Cha 港究茶 Wongtee Plaza 皇庭廣場店 (Shenzhen, CHINA) ★★★★☆

The clock was down to about half an hour left before our dinner table's ready. With another 30 minutes of Me Time, I decided to swing by Gongau Cha (港究茶) for a sip of my favorite Hong Kong style milk tea.

Gongau Cha is a collaboration between 7 Hong Kong-style milk tea champions who decided to join forces to offer some of the best "silk stocking" milk tea (港式絲襪奶茶) in the market.

Even for milk tea, Gongau Cha offers a number of options with different formulas. I was also curious of the "ice fire" toast served with thick slabs of frozen butter.

Champion Silk stocking milk tea (冠軍絲襪奶茶) – The most popular brand of Hong Kong style milk tea developed together by the 7 champions. This was a milk tea lover's dream.

The tea exuded a delightful fragrance and richness (can tell by its color) accompanied by tremendous velvety thickness. I am impressed!

With my Peking duck dinner coming up shortly, I finally decided to pass on the butter toast for now. Until next time then...

Price: ¥¥¥

Address: Shop No.66, Level 1 Wongtee Plaza, 118 Fuhua Road, Futian, Guangzhou, China

深圳市福田区福华三路118号皇庭广场 L1-66铺

Closest Metro Station: Convention & Exhibition Centre (會展中心)

Tel: +86 (755) 18718325762

Opening Hours: 10:30am - 11:00pm daily

Map: https://j.map.baidu.com/cd/02Ki

 

NiNi’s Cake Wongtee Plaza 皇庭廣場店 (Shenzhen, CHINA) ★★★☆☆

There wasn’t much happening for us this weekend. Little nugget had a number of classes scheduled on Saturday and Sunday; and the plan was to lay low for the rest of the day. When it comes to food, we’ll simply grab something quick in our hood. Nothing fancy. But things were about to heat up when Jelloman popped the question, “don’t think there will be train tickets available to Futian this late right?”.

That got the ball rolling and the next thing I knew, we were already on a taxi on our way to West Kowloon. It was already 2pm.

As planned, we arrived at Futian’s Wongtee Plaza (皇庭廣場) a little after 3pm. Since we already decided to have Peking duck dinner tonight, there was no point for us to have another late lunch at this stage. So, we hurried up to get ourselves a ticket at Jingwei Zhang Roast Duck Restsurant (京味張烤鴨店) and before returning for an early dinner there at 4:30pm, we headed off to NiNi’s Cake for a round of sweet treats to kill some time off the clock.

NiNi’s Cake is a French patisserie and cafe I spotted on my last visit to Wongting around CNY. They have some amazing cakes on display including one that looked like a fire cracker (炮仗). Very eye catching. 🧨

Strawberry passion fruit (莓果慕斯) (¥43) – Inside the crust made with strawberry flavored white chocolate was a layer of strawberry mousse.

This came with a sponge cake base and a centre of strawberry ganache. I didn’t get the chance to try it myself but I assumed that’s also where the passion fruit was hiding, right in the middle of the sponge.

Peach, cream cheese, earl grey (桃礼) (¥43) – Here we have a slice of peach 🍑 sitting on top of some cream cheese. The base was a crepe pouch filled with peach and cream. OK.

Hazelnut praline, dulce, coffee (香草榛果) (¥48) – I am an absolute sucker for hazelnut praline (榛果帕林內) so this should be right up my alley.

I thought it was by far the best out of the three we tried this afternoon. Yes, the hazelnut praline could have been richer in flavors, especially the nuttiness part (It was more creamy than nutty) but all in all, the hazelnut praline, crushed hazelnuts and caramel (menu did say coffee) worked well together as a team.

Food Rating: 5.5/10

Price: ¥¥¥

Address: Shop L2-6, Level 2 Wongtee Plaza Exit C, 118 Fuhua Road, Futian, Guangzhou, China

深圳市福田区福华三路118号皇庭广场西門 L2-6铺

Closest Metro Station: Convention & Exhibition Centre (會展中心)

Tel: +86 (755) 13570811368

Opening Hours: 10:00am - 10:00pm daily

Map: https://j.map.baidu.com/6e/Q4ii

Men Tong Bing Sutt at Mall of the World South 文通冰室 花城匯南店 (Guangzhou, CHINA) ★★★☆☆

I underestimated the effort going from Liwan District (荔灣區) to Tianhe District (天河區), and by the time we arrived at the foot of Canton Tower (广州塔), we only had an hour and a half left before our train departs for Hong Kong.

Just enough time for a very short meal at Mall of the World (花城匯) before we say goodbye to Guangzhou. This is a pretty nice name for a mall, isn't it?

I wasn't going to shop around for a nice restaurant. Not with the amount of time left. Instead a familiar name like Men Tong Bing Sutt (文通冰室) would do the trick for me.

I had their “little bear milk tea (小熊奶茶)” last time I paid them a visit at Central Link. Didn't realize that it has a twin brother, “little bear lemon tea (小熊檸檬茶)”. This looked so cool!

While Jelloman was enjoying her lemon tea, I went for my milk tea fix which I didn't get the chance for in the morning.

BBQ pork with fried eggs and rice (黯然銷魂飯) – This is just a fancy name for fried eggs and char siu on steamed rice.

The char siu was way too fatty for me. Not good....

This trip to Guangzhou was really long overdue. My last one had to date back some 20 years ago and it was a business trip which was pretty hectic as I recalled. Of cuz, I didn't have the spare time to check out the city on my own so this was really my first-ever exploration on some of the major tourist attractions in town. I hope it won't take another 20 years for my next trip back.

Food Rating: 4.5/10

Price: ¥¥

Address: Shop No.3001, Mall of the World South, 89 Huacheng Dadao, Tianhe District, Guangzhou, China

广州市天河区花城大道89号花城匯南区3001铺

Closest Metro Station: Huacheng Dadao (花城大道)

Opening Hours: 11:00am - 10:00pm daily

Map: https://j.map.baidu.com/46/Gu-f

Tao Tao Ju Bing Jia 陶陶居餅家 (Guangzhou, CHINA) ★★★☆☆

A few days ago, when Yellen had a meal at century-old Tao Tao Ju (陶陶居) to kick off her visit in Guangzhou, the news immediately started a media frenzy. Since we were checking out different attractions on Dishifu Lu (第十甫路) on our way to Nanxin Milk Desserts Expert (南信牛奶甜品專家) anyways, I thought we should stop by for their flagship location that dated back to 1880 for a few selfies. It's one of Guangzhou's oldest dim sum restaurants. Too bad, we didn't have time to squeeze in a meal here.

While we didn't have the luck to dine at the old institution of Canton dim sum, we managed to find time for its bakery shop. Located right next door to the restaurant, Tao Tao Ju Bing Jia (陶陶居餅家) offers a wide selection of homemade Chinese pastries, both sweet and savory. 

One of these would make a very good souvenir for our friends in Hong Kong.

Behind the glass walls is their in-house bakery, best known for their freshly baked sweetheart cake (or wife cake 老婆餅), chicken shortcake (雞仔餅) and crispy grain (馬仔).

We won't be doing our job right if we don't get a few of these home.

I think that's all we need for ourselves and our parents...

Crispy grain (馬仔) – This came with some pretty nice crunch. It's not too sweet but very eggy. I like it~!

Egg yolk puff pastry (蛋黃酥) – The pastry was a little too thick and chewy for my liking.

Chinese walnut cookie (核桃酥) – People from Guangzhou are pretty obsessed with their walnut cookies and the local bakers are very good at making them too. This was very flaky with rich walnut flavors. Not bad.

Our next stop was supposed to be the nearby Shangxiajiu Pedestrian Street (上下九步行街) but as the sky was getting dark, we agreed to skip it and move onto our next destination which should have us undercover.

Food Rating: 5/10

Price: ¥¥

Address: 20 Dishifu Lu, Liwan District, Guangzhou, China

广州市荔湾区第十甫路20号

Closest Metro Station: Huangsha (黃沙)

Opening Hours: 9:00am - 10:30pm daily

Map: https://j.map.baidu.com/e2/CUgJ

Nanxin Milk Desserts Expert Dishifu Lu 南信牛奶甜品專家 第十甫路店 (Guangzhou, CHINA) ★★★☆☆

After Yongqing Fang (永慶坊), we took a slow stroll east along Enning Road (恩宁路) towards the other side of Liwan District (荔灣區). It was an area near Dishifu Lu (第十甫路) which was full of narrow alleyways and Tong Lau (唐樓) or Ke Lau (騎樓) architectures. 

There was the occasional street vendors selling street food that we don't see in metropolitan cities anymore (and I consider Guangzhou a metropolitan city).

Upon our arrival in Dishifu Lu, we decided to check out a number of iconic places here before moving onto Shangxiajiu Pedestrian Street (上下九步行街), with Nanxin Milk Desserts Expert (南信牛奶甜品專家) very high on our list.

Founded in 1934, Nanxin Milk Desserts is one of the highest ranked dessert shops in all of Guangzhou (if not the highest) best known for their Double skin milk (or Shuang Pi Nai 雙皮奶). 

Black Sesame Soup (黑芝麻糊) – Very thick and nutty but not as grainy as the one I got from Heartwarming (暖心芝作) in Sham Shui Po. It was nice but I'm sure there are similar quality of black sesame soup available back in Hong Kong.

Double skin milk (雙皮奶) – This was what we came for in the first place, their Shuang Pi Nai. I thought it was really as good as advertised. Soft, milky and silky smooth. Other than the egg white and steamed milk, I simply couldn't taste much sugar (sweetness) in this, which was great. Let the egg white and milk shine!

Ginger milk pudding (姜汁撞奶) – This took a while to arrive and it remained piping hot even after a good 5-minute wait. The pudding I thought was ultra soft but the extra heat from ginger almost left a burning sensation on my tongue. Couldn't believe one could actually order extra ginger for this dessert.

Turns out Nanxin is more than a one-trick pony. Other than their famous desserts, they also have an impressed food menu that includes stuff like wonton noodle soup, noodles with beef brisket, and steamed rice rolls with prawns. Too bad we've already eaten lunch.

Food Rating: 5.5/10

Price: ¥¥

Address: 47 Dishifu Lu, Liwan District, Guangzhou, China

广州市荔湾区第十甫路47号

Closest Metro Station: Huangsha (黃沙)

Tel: +86 (20) 81389904

Opening Hours: 10:30am - 10:30pm daily

Map: https://j.map.baidu.com/5f/wOc 

Yan Ning Gelato Factory 恩宁雪糕行 (Guangzhou, CHINA) ★★★★☆

The rain finally slowed down a bit after lunch and we could head over to our second destination in Guangzhou without getting ourselves wet. Situated in the Liwan District (荔灣區), Yongqing Fang (永慶坊) is an old residential neighborhood which is now home to a number of trendy cafes, restaurants and bookstores following its revitalization. It has quietly become a popular check-in spot (打卡) in Guangzhou in recent years and good thing's that, it was just a comfortable 10-minute walk from our lunch spot.

Yan Ning Gelato Factory (恩宁雪糕行), an artisan gelato shop is our first stop inside touristy Yongqing Fang. 

Yan Ning's gelato is handmade daily in small quantities using the freshest ingredients. They boast some really interesting flavors including their signature flavor by the name of Mangong Cake (盲公餅, literally Blind man's biscuit), which is a specialty of Foshan city also in Guangdong province. It's a biscuit made with ground nuts and sesame seeds. Too bad, this flavor wasn't available to us this afternoon.

Two scoops of gelato are going for 23RMB here. Not a bad deal at all. We decided to go with the Tofu Fa (豆腐花) and pepper (椒花) flavors that turned out to be very satisfying. The Tofu fa gelato came with some extra heat of ginger which was pretty refreshing but I like the pepper one more thanks to the special numbing effects (which was rarely found in ice-cream).

Yeah, I'm much happier already. 

Right across the street from Yan Ning Gelato Factory is Kungfu Nata (功夫蛋撻), another popular shop in Yongqing Fang serving some funky flavors of egg tarts. Check them out when you happen to pay Yongqing Fang a visit!

Less than 150 metres away from Yang Ning Gelato Factory is another famous landmark in Yongqing Fang, Ancestral Home of Bruce Lee (李小龙祖居). It was built by his father and the family actually lived there for over ten years.

Food Rating: 6/10

Price: ¥¥

Address: 69 Enning Road, Liwan District, Guangzhou, China

广州市荔湾区恩宁路69号

Closest Metro Station: Ruyifang (如意坊)

Tel: +86 (20) 13902255626

Opening Hours: 10:00am - 11:00pm daily

Map: https://j.map.baidu.com/fa/nKic

Tang Li Yuan 唐荔園食藝館 (Guangzhou, CHINA) ★★★☆☆

A couple of weeks ago, I got the memo to start planning for a trip to Guangzhou after Easter. It’s my first trip to Guangzhou in 20 years and part of me was really excited about the chance to witness all the changes in the city over the past two decades.

We took the morning train at 8am-ish trying to get an early start. By the time we arrived in Guangzhou South station, it was around 9:30am. We hopped onto the local metro line and 15 stations (and around 40 minutes) later, we made it to Ruyifang station (如意坊站). We knew it wasn't good news when we saw a bunch of people hiding from the rain just inside the station. Soon, we found out ourselves that the heavy rain had caused a lot of flooding in the Liwan area. It was virtually impossible to cross a few of the main roads.

We had to really dig down and battle against the strong wind and heavy rain. It took us a while to get through all the obstacles but we finally made it to the edge of Liwan Lake Park (荔灣湖公園). Our clothes, jeans, socks, backpack; everything was soaking wet.

But we decided to stick with our plans. To kick off our visit in Guangzhou, we'll first enjoy a relaxing dim sum lunch at Tang Li Yuan (唐荔園食藝館), one of the four famous garden restaurants in Guangzhou (廣州四大園林酒家之一). 

Situated on the south side of Liwan Lake Park, Tang Li Yuan boasts a stunning lake view in a traditional Chinese setting reminiscent of the architectures from Tang dynasty.



Our tour of the iconic Xiguan food culture would start right here with our highly anticipated dim sum lunch.

It would have been a nice adventure to dine on board with one of these small boats but they were not in service amidst the poor weather conditions.

Instead, we're going to dine inside two-storey building by the lake. 

The dining room upstairs was nicely decorated with a lot of space in between tables.

We could enjoy a partial view of the lake at some of these tables by the window.

As soon as we got settled down (and started drying our clothes), our server came over to get our tea ready.

Time to enjoy something nice and warm after a hectic two hours.

Steamed rice rolls with mixed sauce (三色混醬腸) – I was excited to have this arrive as our first dish. The rice rolls beautifully decorated with the usual sesame sauce, sweet sauce and chilli sauce already sprayed on top, were so soft and tender. A very nice start to the meal.

Steamed shrimp dumplings (四色水晶鮮蝦餃) – This came with four distinctively different colors which had me immediately thinking that it was four different flavors. 

Well.....while I still believed they had four different flavors to it, I really couldn’t tell the difference. The red one looked like it’s been flavored with chilli but I couldn’t really tell.

Steamed turnip cake with nuts and preserved meat (果仁瑤柱臘味蘿蔔糕) – I like my steamed turnip cake to be really soft and loaded with ingredients but this was custardy like a pudding with very little ingredients in the middle. Not good.

Rice rolls filled with twisted cruller (蔥花金勾炸両) – This was finished with a sprinkle of fresh chives but I thought the twisted cruller was pretty hard and not nearly fluffy enough. 

Liwan-style assorted meat congee with sliced fish (馳名荔灣艇仔粥) – Sampan congee (or riverboat congee), a specialty of Liwan district! An order of this could easily serve up to three to four people. 

I thought this congee was by far the best dish of the meal hands down. It came with so much umami-rich flavors thanks to the fish stock and the amount of ingredients such as sliced fish, shredded pork, crispy pork skin (豬皮), squid and thin slices of scrambled eggs brought so much joy to every bite. 

Crispy puff with taro and scallop in curry sauce (咖喱帶子荔蓉酥) – The puff pastry was a little on the hard side (same for most pastries here this afternoon); same goes for the mashed taro.

But I thought the scallop and curry sauce were fine.

Crispy puff with assorted sweet potatoes (垂涎欲滴酥) – a signature dim sum here with with filling of three different types of sweet potatoes (mashed red potato, purple yam and what I heard was mochi 麻薯).

Again the pastry was a little thick and chewy. 

Cantonese steamed sponge cake (正宗馬拉糕) - Not bad.

While the ambience (including the lake view of course) warrants a second visit, the dim sum itself does not yield the same result. Other than the congee and steamed rice roll, the rest of the dishes didn't really make a strong impression on us but that's okay, we've got three more garden restaurants to check off the list anyways.

P.S.  Tang Li Yuan does not take reservations, online or by phone so don't bother giving the folks here a call.

Food Rating: 5/10

Price: ¥¥¥

Address: Huangsha Boulevard, Ruyifang Road, Liwan Lake Park South Gate, Liwan District, Guangzhou, China

广州市荔湾区黃沙大道如意坊路口荔灣湖公園南

Closest Metro Station: Ruyifang (如意坊)

Tel: +86 (20) 81702228

Opening Hours: 8:00am - 9:00pm daily