Cheung Hong Yuen Kai Tak Sports Park 祥香園餐廳 啟德店 (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★☆☆

We didn’t have much planned for this long weekend since little nugget was down and out after his surgery. For the most part, we’re staying at home, except for this morning when I have an early pickleball game at Kai Tak Sports Park (啟德體育園).

I didn’t know much about the pickleball facility at the sports park until last week, when we had a gathering with our friends here. A friend escorted me around the venue, and after dinner, I even got to visit the outdoor pickleball courts. To my pleasant surprise, the courts are actually cheaper than the private ones at industrial/commercial buildings and better yet, there were open slots even on the weekends. We ended up booking an hour slot to test it out this weekend.

To be brutally honest, I haven’t woken up for a game this early since high school but I have to admit it was a lot of fun despite the tremendous heat. The outdoor courts being under a roof helped a little, but we were still sweating it out within 10 minutes.

After the game, our friend took us to Cheung Hong Yuen (祥香園餐廳), a local cha chaan teng just a short walk from the sports park, for breakfast.

Iced milk tea (凍奶茶) — I learned from their Lai Chi Kok outpost that Cheung Hong Yuen always has a very strong, robust milk tea. I’ll give them that. The tea was creamy again today. A nice way to start the day for my tummy!

Butter pineapple bun (菠蘿油) — Somehow, I never had the pleasure of trying their pineapple bun. The thick slab of frozen butter was the best companion for the bun and to my surprise, it actually came with some scrambled eggs. Not bad.

Noodle soup with satay beef (沙爹牛肉麵) — The noodles were OK but the broth could have been more flavorful. The beef was a little rubbery today, but with the outstanding iced milk tea, I wasn’t complaining.

I’m starting to like the Kai Tak sports facilities more and more. And the fact that they have a dedicated mobile app for booking makes everything so much easier. Perhaps we should do more pickleball games like this from now on.

Food Rating: 5.2/10

Price: $$$

Address: Shop 1, G/F, Kai Yan Court, 6 Muk Lai Street, Kowloon City, Hong Kong

Closest Metro Station: Kai Tak

Tel: +852 5975-4011

Opening Hours: 7:00am - 9:30pm daily

Cheesy The Goat 自私蛋糕 (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★★☆

My quest for the best cheesecakes and the most bizarre flavored one in Hong Kong has taken me through the social media of some of the most popular online cake shops. There are some really interesting flavors out there.

One of the most bizarre (or interesting, depending on how you look at it) cheesecake options I came across was the mentaiko cheesecake (明太子芝士蛋糕) from Cheesy The Goat (自私蛋糕), an online cake shop focused solely on cheesecakes.

So, I decided to order one of Cheesy The Goat’s cheesecakes for our indulgence this week. While the mentaiko cheesecake received a lot of serious consideration, a creamy savory dessert sounded like a pretty filling late-night snack. Onto our second choice: an Oreo cheesecake (焗曲奇芝士蛋糕). That would make a bit more sense as a sweet treat.

This is Cheesy The Goat’s Oreo cheesecake 2.0. From what I’ve heard, it’s a step up from its original Fish Glue Jelly Oreo Cheesecake.

The refined version features a top layer made from crushed Oreo cookie crumbs.

The middle is a creamy Oreo cheesecake filling, and the base a baked, crisp Oreo cookie crust. Although it’s “just Oreo” from top to bottom, the different layers with slightly different textures give the dessert another dimension. The only thing I didn’t like was the light whipped cream underneath the crushed Oreo cookies. It felt a bit pointless when you already have all those creamy Oreo layers right under.

Next up, savory mentaiko cheesecake. Bring it on!

P.S.  Cheesy The Goat has 7 pickup spots across Kowloon, Hong Kong Island, and the New Territories, making their cheesecakes much more accessible than those with conventional physical stores.

Food Rating: 6.7/10

Price: $$$$

Tel: +852 9759-1676

Website: https://cheesythegoat.com/

Instagram: Cheesy_The_Goat

Baking & Co. (Shenzhen, CHINA) ★★★★☆

Baking & Co. is an artisan bakery café at RAIL-IN (睿印) Shopping Mall in Shenzhen’s Nanshan District, where baked goods are made fresh on-site in small batches to keep everything at its peak. While they don’t have a huge variety of products, their bread and cakes have quietly built a loyal following over the past few months thanks to consistently high quality.

I ended up dropping by the bakery just before heading to the rapid train station to see what they have in store for me. Not surprisingly, a lot of their items were already sold out leaving empty shelves everywhere inside the shop.

Well, almost everywhere except for their cake counter.

Baking & Co. offers two types of cakes only: a range of chiffon cakes and Basque burnt cheesecakes. I was eyeing their Basque cheesecake all the way. 

Sea salt pistachio strawberry Basque cheesecake (海鹽開心果草莓巴斯克) (¥38) — 

While their yuzu matcha Basque cheesecake gets most of the attention for its intensely rich matcha flavor, I decided to go in a different direction this afternoon.

Sea salt pistachio strawberry Basque cheesecake delivered a really bold pistachio flavor. The combination of roasted pistachios, homemade strawberry jam, and kiri cream cheese added a lovely contrast in both texture and taste, with everything working together to balance the richness of the cheesecake. I’ll definitely be back for one of these again soon.

Food Rating: 6.3/10

Price: ¥¥¥

Address: Shop B216, Level B2F, RAIL-IN Mall, Nanshan district, Guangzhou, China

深圳市南山区深圳湾睿印负2层B216店铺

Closest Metro Station: Hongshuwan (紅樹灣) / Hongshuwan South (紅樹灣南)

Tel: +86 13049430150

Opening Hours: 8:30am - 10:00pm (Mon - Thu), 8:30am - 10:30pm (Fri - Sun)

Map: https://j.map.baidu.com/bf/wDAM