We were just discussing about Desserts on Facebook, and inevitably the question came up of whether the cake and dessert’s aesthetics should over-shadow the expected right taste and texture. Thomas Lui, probably the most awarded Hong Kong Pastry Chef with numerous medals and awards under his belt (read here) is one of the rare pastry chefs who believes in what’s considered the opposite to the basic rule of ‘form shall follow function’. To him, who is also a trained and award winning Chocolatier, the colours and design of the cakes and chocolate art pieces are what distinguishes him from his competition… Online reviews about him have seen mixed feedbacks. While some rave about his beautiful creations, others prefer places like Mandarin Oriental Cake Shop, Tony Wong, even Chez Shibata. To be fair, the latter have cakes which are probably easier to assemble than what Thomas does. But for me, anything that is to be eaten must also possess edible qualities at least matching or transcending its external appearance. So yes, I think Thomas could potentially become a very successful “Architect”… At least you don’t need to eat the buildings!
In Tin Hau -
Thomas used to work for The Mira’s cake shop,
before opening his own.
Cake Display -
Sneaky pic as you cannot take photos here
Mini Lotti $45 -
A new creation from Thomas, this has a chocolate sponge centre, a chocolate crisp, and a yuzu jam sponge, and decorated with some beautiful chocolate pieces and ganache glazing coating. This was unfortunately, very ‘hard’ in its texture even when out of the fridge for a while. ~ 6.5/10
Mini Rosenana $45 -
This is one of Thomas’s first signature desserts created for his new shop. With a spray-painted and drilled chocolate dome, inside you’ll find up to 6-7 different textures including strawberry yogurt, mango, chocolate mousse, sponge cake on top of a streusel. But as soon as I tried to cut the cake, the dome fell right off and exposing an ordinary bottom-half. This ate ok but was a bit too messy for my liking ~ 7/10
Hilary $60 -
Another new creation by Thomas, this looked amazing in real life. Green Tea and Mango cube filled with fruit jellies, sits on top a painted chocolate piece, on top of a super-hard sponge base which really distracted from what could have been a brilliant cake. ~ 6.5/10
Price: $45 – $60 Per Cake
Score: ★★★★☆☆
Opening Hours:
Mon to Sunday 11:00am - 20:00pm
Address: 天后永興街17號凱旋樓地下
G/F Triumphant Court, 17 Wing Hing Street, Tin Hau
Ph: 2806 0332
The cakes look impressive! What a shame that they don't taste as good as they look...
ReplyDeletewill that super hard sponge be almond cake? if that is, i would fall in love with that and go try...:P
ReplyDeleteOnly if u love the hard-core stuff hahaha!
ReplyDeleteYes - the cakes here look very pretty indeed, and very unique. They're even better than many of the so-called French patisseries in France in looks. But in the taste.... sigh