Debailleul  

Debailleul is a very world famous chocolate/sweets shop which has surprisingly received little acclamation or press coverage in Hong Kong - with a low key entry hidden under the escalators, with hardly any customers here. Although having seen many of their shops in Tokyo and which are always packed, even I did not realise until lately that 2 of their chefs have won numerous awards internationally. The main owner Marc Debailleul is actually French, although the company is known to be a Belgian one (can't figure that one out).
The Chocolates with Ganache are very good indeed. The ganache chocolates are as good as Debauve & Gallais, and better than the direct competition such as Jean Paul Hevin, La Maison Du Chocolat, Agnes b. Delices, Valrhona, Leonidas, Godiva, etc. They're not too sweet here, which often overpowers the chocolate coating and ganaches. The dark chocolates here are quite good as well, very similar to the Debauve and Gallais version although my main preference is still the Jean Paul Hevin Dark Chocolates, which are amazing.
However, despite the famed name - the experience was partially disastrous. The Macarons we order, were actually not stored very well - they were so wet from bad defrosting, that the top was too soft and inedible. As such, even if the Macarons were 'probably' of a very high standard, it was impossible to rate them fairly due to this batch's problem. Similarly, a chocolate crumble with apple tart was also too moist and not edible, despite looking presentable. These were waived from the bill as there were clearly signs of damages. Not good.
What do I come here for?
Definitely the coffee.
The Italian blended coffee from Napoli is very special indeed, with multiple layers of complexity that is unlike anything else in Hong Kong. Its great for both milk coffees as well as Espressos, although in the espresso it might be a bit too strong to detect the multiple-layers hidden beneath - not helped by the fact that these imported coffees aren't as fresh as locally roasted ones. Whereas competitions like CREMA might have a more fresher, red fruitier based espresso roast, here, it is much more complicated than that. Would love to try them when they're closer to the fresh state! Behind these imported packages of coffee, lies a very sophisticated coffee blend far beyond anything else I've tried in Hong Kong.
The tall barista with glasses here is very good as well, definitely one of the best I've seen in HK, with good 'accurate' latte art skills. When he's not here, other people making the coffee however don't do justice to the coffee like he does.
Unfortunately on my last visit, the milk in the coffee was a bit 'so so dei', a problem that I've also encountered at CREMA on the last 2 visits - it was overpowering the coffee base a bit. If you're lucky however - this is an EQUAL 1st Coffee Experience in Hong Kong for me. Behind the objective review however - I personally rate this as my no.1 preferred coffee in Hong Kong ! However, it can have flaws sometimes.

K san suggested to have a drink and I remembered the famous chocolate here. So after buying chocolate, we directly went to this open area cafe.

I ordered Iced chocolate ($38): Very rich taste of chocolate even some ice had been added to it. 朱古力很滑, good!

K san ordered Mocha ($33): Haha I forced him to order some chocolate related drink as I knew he would pick coffee. The waiter made him a heart shaped cream mocha. 咖啡味很濃，亦有朱古力味，Good！But we both think that Agnes b cafe was much better.

The cake and ice-cream looked very nice but we didn’t order any~ Next time maybe we should try.

Haha hea for 1.5 hours here, talking stupid things, but really quite relax sitting here.