Fine Foods    帝苑餅店  

Heard the Green Apple was a one of the new signature desgins, so I ordered two and turened out to be a big let down. First of all, the ladies offered the poor-quality, fragile plastic forks which snapped easily while cracking the Green Apple cake. Inside, the Cheese was too sour and the fluid texture didn't please us. Three of us stopped after the first few bites and the 2nd Green Apple was left unattended . THe Pink raspberry tasted fine, but it didn't excite me much either.Napoleon , one of the signature desserts too, wasn't as nice as I imagined. The crisp was too thick and not crispy enough. I recommend the Napoleon lovers should go for the one in HK Shangri-La instead, it was the best Napoleon I ever treid.Black Forest. The layers and colors looked so attractive and again it's a let down. Two of the girls thought it was too sour. We wanted something sweet and didn't expect it was a sour journey to begin with.Chocolate Truffle Cake. It was the only tasty cake at Fine Foods. Rich chocolate , creamy texture, three of us finished it up in a minute.Nice designElegant, Classy DecorElegant, Classy DecorThe staff here was rather impudent and rude. Lack of smile served with impatient answer and description, especially the older women was unbearable.

I have always wanted to try the cakes from Fine Foods but East Tsim Sha Tsui is too far and inconvenient.

They had a counter at Hang Hau so I bought some cakes from there.

Initially I did not know they were Fine Foods because I went over thinking they were selling English foods until I went to the counter.

We had a good Chinese New Year dinner at the Royal Garden Hotel Chinese restaurant last night for about 14 friends. Some of my dear friends brought a few bottles of fine red wine. My girlfriend would like to treat everyone a nice cake. I suggested her to order a 2 pound tiramisu at the Fine Foods. They could deliver the cake to our table directly. This was one of the best Tiramisu in Hong Kong. It was not too sweet. I could tasted different layers of egg white, chocolate, and sponge cake. They also offer credit card 15%off discount. This cake was $442, very reasonable price.

As there comes a French chef to fine foods,

Received this beautifully packed 蝴蝶酥(Palmiers) from a dear friend. She asked me to compare this with Cookies Quartet's palmiers. In fact, I really love palmiers since I don't even remember when, so when I received this gift, I was thrilled as I always wanted to try this very well known bakery's.

Palmiers - The sizes of each pieces are quite even and in comparison, they are much larger than the ones offered by Cookies Quartet. As they are basically puff pastry, larger size does enhance its crispiness. First bite proves that it is much more crisp than its competitors and for most, the sweetness is just right, but for myself who usually prefer sweeter taste find it not quite up to my liking.

Overall, I am extremely impress by these beautifully made palmiers which went well with my daily coffee. It is also important to note that after I have opened the packing for a few days, they stay crispy! Bravo!

I called Royal Garden Fine Foods shop only during noon time on the day before mother's day, and was happy to know that they still accept orders. I ordered a mixed berries napoleon cake.

It looks really great, and I noticed that most others ordered napoleon cake too (mainly strawberry or mango though). The cake tastes very delicious. The only difficulty is to cut it into pieces without breaking it. :-)

It is a bit expensive ($5xx for 2 pounds), but I think I will try again next time (during normal days when the usual discounts by purchase with certain credit cards applies)

My Mum went to Royal Garden on the weekend and managed to snag the last three milk pudding desserts ($34 each) by Chef Wada. It was covered in a food review magazine last week, and it says on the Royal Garden website: "2010 The Sapporo Sweets Ambassador Koichiro Wada is at The Royal Garden to showcase his wonderful pastries and desserts. Recommended items include mango cheese cake, Fuji apple tart, white tiramisu mousse cake, green tea short cake and more. New creations every week - be among the first to try them!"

Although I am loathe to share the surprise that was at the bottom of the milk pudding...it really is quite indicative of Chef Wada's skills. My Uncle thought the milk pudding a bit too sweet but the consensus was that it was smooth and delicious. But the proof is indeed in the pudding, or beneath the pudding. What lied beneath was mille-feuille with a cool custard sandwiched in between.

Together it was a clash of textures, but what a beautiful clash it was.

He's here until September, so ring ahead and reserve!

(My Mum also picked up the Green Tea with Mango cake, which was very strong on the green tea, (slightly bitter, to be honest). Also a fruit tart, a hit and miss.)

I took a friend here for an afternoon sweet-tooth fix. we initially wanted to have the desserts consumed in Greenery upstairs but having learnt that they were going to charge a surplus of nearly double the prices of take-out and the poor poor service of waitresses upstairs and downstairs, we decided to forgo the extra cost and take out.

It seems all I eat are sweets these days...but as long as they're good I'm not complaining!

Chocolate Truffle $40
This cake was rich but not in the dense way. Rather, it had an excellent combination of a plain biscuit base for crunchiness, a chocolate sponge (base) for that soft spongey texture, a chocolate mousse for some chocolate sweetness and finally a chocolate glaze. The sponge and biscuit at the bottom balanced the sweetness of the mousse and glaze very well. This is one of their best-sellers I think, and it is justified for this was a very good piece of well-designed and thought-out cake.

[bSapporo Hasakappu Fromage] $36
This was made from a cheese imported from sapporo i believe. The staff had a hard time explaining what the cake really was composed of, so I got it to try it out myself. The outer red shiny layer is actually a sweet yet sour fruit flavoured jelly, with a soft and slightly sweet cheese mouse inside, with the centre being a fruit flavoured mousse. The cake was all soft, a much contrast to the chocolate truffle cake. I liked this cake very much as the sourness of the fruit went very well with the cheese mouse. A better way to enjoy this cake though, was in between bites of the chocolate truffle cake!

A very tasty sweet experience despite the unexpectedly poor service from a hotel.

Decided to visit RG's cake shop since I've heard a lot of hype about their cakes. On arriving, we realised there wasn't anywhere to eat it - we couldn't take out because where would we take it to? The weather was bad outside... so we walked a little further on the street and there was martini bar. For 10-20% more (in value) you can actually have your cakes be brought in here to be eaten =). So we went back next door to place our orders.

There weren't much choices today. Looking from previous reviews, I seem to have gone on a bad day (public holiday) because there were no small cakes, only sliced cakes like chocolate truffle or blackforest and a few pastries.

So, deciding I'd come another time for their cakes I ordered the following:
Raspberry Tart
A brief description of this would be a short crust tart shell, with a very thin chocolate coating, a thick dollop of pastry cream (custard), and raspberries. The tart shell remained crisp, thanks to the pastry chef's use of the chocolate layer to prevent the custard from soaking into the tart shell. It was more cookie-like than buttery, and had a slight sweetness to it - very good!. It was hard, but not like Paul Lafayet's which was literally unbreakable.... The pastry cream was the best I've had in a long long time. It was the right sweetness and you could taste a hint of egg yolk used in cooking the custard, as well as a little vanilla. Using vanilla beans would have been better but this was still really good. It was thick and gelatinous so it would hold the fruit in place. The raspberries were very fresh although sour, but I don't mind the sourness!

Mango Mille-feuille/napoleon
I wasn't exactly hungry so I shouldn't have ordered this as well...but in search for a really good mille-feuille I had to! On this day they used mangoes - not my favourite fruit choice but they were still really ripe and sweet. The pastry cream (custard) used was the same as the raspberry tart but what was the star was the crisp and crunchy pastry. True there were a lot of layers, and I think they were mostly glazed (with a sugar coating) before layering so they would stick and also become a 'block' against the liquid from the pastry cream. It was skilfully made and thus when eaten, it was very crunchy and crisp and the had the right sweetness. Some pastry chefs omit using the sugar glaze which makes the pastry become soggy (where it touches the pastry cream) and also doesn't remain crunchy/crisp. I must make a mental note to buy one of their whole napoleon cakes when a special occasion comes up!

In brief, this shop sells the best pastries I have tried and if you would like a place to eat them straight away I would recommend you try martini bar if you don't mind the slight price-hike.

Butterfly pastry ($60 a pack about 22 pieces): ordered two packs on the previous day. the butterfly pastry is very crispy. sweet and delicious. My friend siad that it is better than Cookie Quartet.

Tiramisu:well balance of coffee, chocoalte and wine. best in the town.

Chocoalte hazelnut cake: crunchy, smooth and rich chocoalte. very very delcious. a good alternative for the chocolate truffle cake.

I think it is the best Napoleon Cake in HK. The custard cream is hand made ; you can indeed see the vanilla seeds inside the cream. Strawberries are fresh and sweet....obviously good quality stuff !!! Puff Pastry is crispy and fragrant.
Most of them are sold out before 4pm everyday...(started from 2pm)

YUM YUM !!! one tip: better to give them a call for the availability before going

Before I try their Birthday Cakes, I decided to buy some smaller cakes to have a try.
Chocolate Dome with Berries - Very rich but not sweet chocolate taste, great rich but acceptably so mousse like texture which is NOT sponge cake like, unlike so many other HK cake shops which use it as a filler. Great, better than Mandarin Oriental Cake Shop believe it or not (which also has Sponge problem, no matter how great that sponge 'filler' is). 95 out of 100. *Note: This seems to be a limited edition one.

Rose Pedal Macaroon with Raspberry - Again, very nice. Great Macaroon texture, with aromatic rose pedal jam like taste. Macaroon base around 15% too sweet for my liking also slightly too 'wet' but that's picking at nothing, at least its not as sweet as the ones at LGB. Great filling of the middle Raspberries and cream, and you can even eat the rose pedal. 92 out of 100.
Very affordable prices.
Must try their bigger cakes soon.
Also, the photos below don't do them justice I think - it seems like the quality of their cakes has improved recently looking at the dates of publishing, some of the birthday cakes they make are amazing, probably the BEST I've seen in HK, better than Mandarin Oriental or Zoe, Cova,etc.
Give them a try!

For my birthday this year, I wanted to try a cake from a hotel bakery. The proximity of this place to my home and its good reputation made me decide to try this place! Of course, I ordered a black forest cake as it is my favourite.

This was not a traditional black forest cake. First of all, the appearance is lovely, wrapped around by hard chocolate. Then, the layers from top to bottom were: chocolate mousse, chocolate cake, kirsch cherries and cream, chocolate cake, and a biscuit base. My favourite part of this cake was the biscuit base! That isn't found a lot in black forests, and for a crust lover like me, it's perfect. I also loved the kirsch cherries, which are a preferred alternative to the oversweetened berries or jelly that normal bakeries use. The chocolate mousse was also smooth and just sweet enough (I have a very sweet tooth)!

Can't wait to try other cakes from this place!

had a tiramisu ($25) and a black forest cake ($32). the tiramisu is very small. i think it tastes better in Sabintini. the tiramisu in Sabintin also double in size in set lunch. the set lunch is really good for money.

the black forest cake is quite good. love the cherry inside.

I always go there after 530pm - 40% off for muffin,bread, egg tart and even sandwiches (NOT for cheesecake).

Usually after discount:

Muffin and eggtart: HKD4.2
Buns and pastries: HKD5.4
Quiche: HKD10

All are 5-class hotel standard, really yummy. So if other chain bakery shops are charging HKD5 - 6 for bun, why not pay the same price for much better stuff?

Highly recommended!!!