Lemon Tarts at Aux Petits Verre

Aux Petits Verre

서울특별시 종로구 체부동 19

19 Chebu-dong (24 Jahamunro 5gagil), 

Jongrogu, SEOUL, KOREA

google map// naver map

Lemon Tart (7,000 WON) + Tea (5,000 WON)

Although I didn't think it would take this long for me to start blogging about the food, drinks, places or any odd bits and pieces of my life in Seoul...it has been more than 4 months since I started my hectic life here. 

Although I've been to several excellent restaurants, today's little dessert shop was just what I needed on a sunday afternoon feeling slightly home-sick and slightly displaced. 

The shop is apparently owned by Master Chef Korea season one runner-up Park Jun Ooh (박준우),

and is famous for their lemon tarts!

I've come to learn that everything that's 'famous' in Korea, means that it's super over-crowded, super unfriendly and usually not that impressive.. (especially the western cuisine/desserts).

However I was surprised to visit on a sunday afternoon a rather tiny and quiet shop, where there was nothing on the menu except 5-6 tarts (and meringue cake), teas and french wine.

It is strange but the more concentrated and short the menus are these days... the more faith I have in the quality of the food... :)

Anyhow.. after looking through the menu and walking around to take a peak at the tarts,

we decided to share a lemon tart and a glass of tea (which I forgotten the name of.. )

It was a nice concept to be able to smell the teas prior to choosing them, and we were soon persuaded to try a cup of tea rather than a cup of coffee.

I think I'll just have to come back for the chocolate tart and the strawberry one...

Although i really was not expecting a proper lemon tart... This little surprise turned out to be one of the best lemon tarts I've tasted in a while. Delightfully light on top of a perfect crust..., it was neither overly sweet nor sour and really (ACTUALLY) tasted like lemons! 

It took enormous amount of self-control to not suggest to my friend to order another one.. perhaps the strawberry one.. going along the lines of "how much damage can a little tart do?"

But going along with the rationale it better to leave the place craving for another bite so that soon i'll just have to return for another bite, we quickly exited the tiny little place hidden in Seoul.

And now, although i'm not sure if anyone does read my blog anymore,

begins my journey through finding what I love to eat in Seoul!

Tibetan Noodles at North Point (and Dessert at Fook Yuen)

Noodles 青藏牛肉麵

  

Kam Ping Street, 27A, North Point, Hong Kong

Rating: 7.2/10

Price: 50 HKD per person (30-40 HKD for noodle)

There's a vicious cycle you often fall into if you live on campus (like I do) in Asia. You always have to eat similar-tasting chinese dishes that are often not that great that once you get to leave the campus and eat out, you only ever go for the most western food available.

It's not that the western food in Hong Kong is not good, it's just that there's so much authentic and awesome food that you miss out that are frankly speaking so god damn CHEAP and close too! 

So, eager to convince others of this perfect opportunity to quickly and cheaply escape the monotonous campus food... I took two of my friends to this Tibetan Noodle place in North Point.

I mean... who has ever tried Tibetan Food outside of Tibet? Really? Isn't that enough of a reason to go try this place out?!?!

AND unlike the other noodle-joints in Hong Kong where the food may be good, but the staff are so snarky and scary, this restaurant was one of the friendliest 'local' restaurant I've been to!
They had a great English Menu that wasn't hurriedly written down with poor english but a proper menu with cute little chilli to denote spicy dishes!

Plus the woman taking orders were very patient and even suggested us the dishes to try without even being asked! 

We decided to try couple of the dishes (as recommended and approved by the staff):
    -Beef Noodles with Home Made Garlic Sauce (39HKD)
    -Stir Fry Noodles with Leek & Mutton (45HKD) 
    -Poached Egg with Home-Made Sauce (12 HKD)
    -Cucumber with Home Made Garlic Sauce (28 HKD)
    -Cumin Grilled Eggplant with Garlic (25HKD)

To give a grand-total of: 50 HKD per person for 3 of us! :)

The restaurant is relatively clean too, and we had went rather early (around 6PM) and the place only started really filling up as we were leaving! It had a very relaxed atmosphere with no one pushing or shoving us around.

Poached Egg (3/5):
It's not that the egg was not well-cooked! It was actually rather excellent but there was nothing too special about it, and it was quickly forgotten as soon as the other dishes began arriving. Especially given that the flavors of the other dishes was rather distinct and strong, it was rather bland.

Cumin Grilled Eggplant (4.5/5):
  This dish was excellent! THe egg-plant had a crispy outer-layer whilst not being dry! Plus the over-abundance of garlic was such a great match with the cumin-spiced eggplant. It was actually not spicy at all, but if you don't really like garlic this is DEFINITELY not the dish for you! Otherwise, this is one of the best eggplant dish I've had in Hong Kong

Beef Noodles with Home Made Garlic Sauce (4/5):
Despite it being 'Tibetan', I guess I had expected it to taste similar to the noodles I've had some-point in my life. However the flavor was refreshingly and shockingly new, I could not relate it to anything I've tried before, and there's something so tantalizing about trying something completly new. 

Plus, the hand-pulled noodles were delightfully cooked to al-dente, which meant it was chewy-and firm just the way it should be!

Spicy Leek and Mutton Stir-Fried Noodles (3.5/5):
I preferred the beef-noodles, but by no means was this a average dish! Despite it being rather oily, the strong mutton and cumin flavor from the sauce made the whole dish come-together without it being too  heavy. The Noodles were thicker, and firmer too!

It wasn't as spicy as I hoped it would be, and anyone who doesn't have a severe problem with spicy food should be able to enjoy all the dishes without any difficulty.

Cucumber with Home Made Garlic Sauce (4/5):

   Apparently this is a staple side-dish in China, and I can understand why! It's so yummy! :) It's like an oriental salad with cucumbers! They were so refreshing and lightly seasoned that it paired nicely with the heavier flavors of the main-dishes. The slightly sour vinegar taste also boosts your appetite and cleans up the meaty-flavor from the other dishes! 

Ha, as you can see from the photo above it was a successful (and cheap) dinner! Now i get to boast about having had the chance to try Tibetan style food and that it tasted delicious! I hope one day I can go to Tibet to try out the local cuisine there because despite my original doubts, it tastes very different from other Chinese dishes! 

Fook Yuen     福元湯圓  

Shop I-1, G/F, Lei Do Building, 7 Fuk Yuen Street, North Point

北角炮台山福元街7號利都樓地下I-1舖

note: FORTRESS HILL MTR exit A

After dinner, we decided to walk a little to Fortress Hill to a corner-dessert place that had a rather high reputation on Open Rice. Following our trend of 'all things local', we decided to try some local treats for dessert! There's no English menu at this place, but you can point on the photos to order (like we did). But after trying the dessert above and their specialty which are the glutinous rice balls, next time I'll just go straight for these amazing little balls filled with black sesame!

The desserts are so cheap with most of them under 20 HKD, and if you do order the glutinous rice-balls you get total of 5, which should fill you up rather well! 

Look how happy she looks! 

See the sesame oozing out?! It's simply divine! It's much much better (and less sweet) than mochii in my opinion! They're just so chewy and soft and... and...just try them! 

There's different flavors you can choose from, we tried both peanut filling and black sesame and we loved them both! I think there's couple of other ones such as red-bean but i highly recommend the black sesame!!

Sweet Sweet Date at Laduree and Debauille

Laudree

(Harbor City, Tsim Tsa Tsui)

'

Once in a while there are these inexplicable days when my soul, body and mind join forces in craving chocolate. That's literally the way it seems! It's as if i NEED chocolate as much as I need that gulp of water after running on the tracks.. or sometimes it's even worse!

Yet, I always find myself reluctant to indulge myself in a sweet-sweet-heaven, for the simple reason that I fear I will not be able to control myself. Those of you (especially boys) who do not have similar cravings will never truly understand how deep this lust for cakes, chocolates, macaroons, cupcakes lies.. but for those who "suffer" with similar symptoms  I think you'll get my point of how much will-power it took to go crazy and eat a whole box of chocolate.

Anyhow... that's why on occasion one must enjoy a day of indulgence. Pure Pure indulgence without thinking about calories, exercises, abs, sugars, butter, chocolate or WHATEVER. You just enjoy the company, the taste and the inexplicable magical taste of chocolate.

After trying out Laudree for the first time in Paris, I fell in LOVE with macaroons. I mean I always though they were these overly sugary and sweet 'candy' like things but... after having a proper macaroon (or dozens) I was mesmerized at how many flavors, sweetness and depth a cute little macaroon can bring! From there on I went to convince and bring many of my friends to show how we asians are missing out on these lovely little treats. 

For some bizarre reason, we only decided to buy ONE chocolate macaroon each... and although they were sublime (but..... the ones in Paris were just so much better) it was simply not enough for a proper dessert. It was probably not a good idea to be out with a friend who loved chocolate (possibly even more than me).. but after convincing ourselves that macaroon was not enough we marched off to the other end of the Harbor City.

Debailleul

I had never heard of this shop before but it had good reviews on open-rice AND us being disappointed at the limited cakes left at COVA, we decided to give it a try... We had arrived there around 8:30PM (the shop closes at 9:00PM), and the place was totally deserted. Although we had initally felt uncomfortable at the lack of customers, we were happy to know that there were no more minimum service charges and that we also had the waiter's full attention to provide was lengthy recommendations and explanations...

THey did have a very wide range of cakes (and cupcakes too) and after a very tough and heated discussion we finally settled on Black Forest Cake with Chocolate Mouse and Vanilla Cream as its filling.

Oh...man.. you thought this looks good? Wait till you crack the thin layer of crispy chocolate to find...

This gorgeous layer of chocolate mouse, vanilla cream and biscuit layer soaked in coffee.... I had originally thought it would be a little too sweet but there was none of that artifical sugary flavor but just the deep smooth richness of chocolate mouse with vanilla cream. 

We had originally planned to share one, but after finishing the black forest cake so quickly... we simply had to try a new one! Alas, here it is Rubico - dark chocolate mouse with pistachio cream and chocolate brittle covered with raspberry paste. IT was heavenly.

Mini European Holiday at Cafe Loisl

Cafe Loisl

Tai On Terrace, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong (link to map)

Rating: 8.3/10 

Price: Around 30-50 HKD for coffee/tea and 60 HKD for dessert
You know you have found your favorite cafe, when you don't hestiate to take the MTR for 40 minutes, walk up close to 100 steps of stairs for a cup of coffee and maybe a slice of cake.
Although, I do have to admit that Cafe Loisl is much more than cup of coffee (if it was just a coffee i'm craving, there's always Barista Jam with its amazing lattes, beans and what not)...

To me, Cafe Loisl is everything I miss about Europe. 
I had heard about this place for a while, and its alluring tag of 'viennese cafe' in Hong Kong... But it just seemed to good to be true. Could such a place really exist in Hong Kong? 
In Amsterdam, a nice cafe meant sitting outside, enjoying maybe one too many coffees in the sun.. it was about the whole atmosphere, the weather and a lifestyle...

SO there it was, I had expected nothing from Cafe Loisl, but it had given me my secret-european getaway. It was a beautiful cafe, tucked away from the city center.... where we could actually sit outside and fool ourselves into thinking we are on a holiday.

     

The owner had obviously an eye for details..... everything from the tea-sets, the waiter's clean and simple black and white uniform and the wooden chairs... it was just as if it was plucked straight from Vienna and plunged into streets of Hong Kong.

Anyhow after spending ridiculous amount of time looking around, taking photos and being excessively giddy at finding such a place.. .we finally calmed down enough to take a look at the desserts (after ordering coffee too!)

We went for the Applestrudel and Mille-feuille and 3 cups of Wiener Melange (espresso with foamed milk)  :)
I had never tried Mille-feuille and although the Applestrudel was suppose to be the specialty, i loved the Mille-feuille even more! :D 

Having not known what it was... I looked it up in Wikipedia! 

Mille-feuille (French pronunciation: ​[mil fœj], "thousand sheets"),^[1] vanilla slice, custard slice, also known as the Napoleon, is a pastry of French origin.
Traditionally, a mille-feuille is made up of three layers of puff pastry (pâte feuilletée), alternating with two layers of pastry cream (crème pâtissière), but sometimes whipped cream, or jam are substituted. The top pastry layer is dusted with confectioner's sugar, and sometimes cocoa, or pulverized seeds (e.g. roasted almonds). Alternatively the top is glazed with icing or fondant in alternating white (icing) and brown (chocolate) stripes, and combed.

Thousand Sheets.... What a name for a pastry eh? :)
I also loved the Wiener Melange! It was a little bit lighter than piccolo latte but definitely stronger than a latte, and it went perfectly with the desserts! :) It took so much restraint to not go for another cup straight after.

I returned almost days after my first visit here... I just had to show off to a German friend that such a place existed in Hong Kong! Although he was also skeptical at first, we soon found ourselves perfectly content enjoying the sun and indulging in a slice of strawberry cheesecake (AMAZING) with cup of  proper black coffee!

I also took a peak at the Menu.. and fund two MUST try items! Sacher Torte and Currywurst! How long has it been since I had either of those! 

I love love and love this amazing place and I will definitely return again and again, and will extend to this post with all the lovely desserts I will try!
P.S look at this cute logo for the cafe... :D (You can tell i'm completely hooked!)