Pudding  

Pudding is a dessert shop in Tai Hang that I had been wanting to try for long. I went there today with my friends and was hugely disappointed.

The shop was small but furnished in cosy simplicity. The ambiance was nice with relaxing music playing in the background. The menu was simple and we had no clue what the desserts look like from the picture. The staff was friendly and eager to serve, they passed us his iPhone and showed us the pictures of their desserts. (Shouldn't it be iPad serving this function nowadays?) Anyway, we ordered the following...

The Devil Chocolate $46 (5/10)
The Devil Chocolate did not have an appetising look. It was chocolate cheesecake pudding surrounding chocolate brownie with a thin layer of corn flakes. The chocolate cheesecake pudding was not bouncy and had no cheese taste at all. The chocolate brownie had a weak chocolate taste and a rather soft texture. The corn flakes did enhance the overall texture of the cake but the overall taste was rather blend and simple given its multi-layers.Strawberry Honey Box $82 (1/10)
The MOST HORRIBLE toast I have ever tasted in my entire life, thanks to the Pudding I now have the worst-ever record!

I was upmost disappointed with my first bite on the interior of the bread - the texture as supposed to be soft was dry and hard which were two distinguish features of frozen bread. My friend also regconised the disturbing taste as we had had too many crappy bread in our high school years. The crust which was supposed to be crusty was hard as hell, the hardness was stone-hard not crispness.The custard on the other hand was weird too, it was in such texture that reminds me of clay. Thw strawberry was fine (score 1 for normal Strawberry) but I had already lost interest in the toast box.

TO CONCLUDE

Pudding is definitely not a place I will recommend for desserts. I was kinda surprised that given its name, their pudding was not even good. Taiwan Walker told me afterwards that everyone had said desserting in the Pudding is a bad choice. Well, forgive me for not keeping myself updated, I was out of Hong Kong for months

The service is good and polite, I ordered it from the openrice web. I feel that it hs strawberry but it is not old enough. It will be better if it is added more fruit. The taste is fresh and good wafer at the bottom. It is good on it is not very sweet, and it is also very creamy.

Date Dined: thursday 16th June 2011

Ordered: Chocolate Parfait ($36) & Devil chocolate ($42)

Taste: Devil chocolate ($42) - This contains 3 layers, shaped into a dome, and cocoa powder is sieved on top.Devil chocolate: First layer would be the outer layer. the texture is between chocolate mousse and jelly. It l;ooks alot like a chocolate mousse, but once you have a spoon of it, it is like jelly. at first i could not taste it was cheese. But once you have a spoonful of the THREE layer altogether, you will taste the cheese in it. When tasted seperately you would not taste the cheese. it isn't too rich in cheese flavour, so no worries there for anybody who does not like cheese. the texture is soft, gooey and it DOESN'T melt in your mouth as you would expect.the second layer is the layer in the middle wrapped round by the Chocolate cheesecake mousse. it is a brownie and i won't say anythings pecial to the Brownie. it is very bitter when you eat it seperately, so again, i would recommend eating the three layers together.

the third layer is the bottom layer, which is the base of the dessert. It is a lot harder than the two layers. It simply is a layer of chocolate crispy made with cornflakes. it is crispy yet chewy. with rich choco flavor but not overly sweet. it is by far my favourite layer. But if you eat it seperately, it is no special. eaten together it makes a huge difference. One layer of the soft jelly cheesecake, which is over sweet, but the bitterness of the fudge neutalize it. Then theres the hard crispy layer of the chocolate crispy on the bottom, which is chocolatey but not overly sweet. With such a great combination, the dessert is a hit! i loved eevry spoonful of the dessert. I loved how it takes me through few stages of texture and taste, but it goes so well together. but after half of the dessert, it does get too sweet, so i do suggest have a drink, NOT THE CHOCOLATE drink but something refreshing or a parfait like I did.Chocolate Parfait ($36) The chocolate parfait was what everyone ordered in the shop. nearly each table had the parfait. I went for the chocolate parfait. there are a few flavours to choose from - strawberry, Chocolate, chestnut & red bean. red bean was the cheapest and where chestnut is most expensive. It was quite a huge tall glass,w hich i did not think i can finish it by myself. the vanilla ice cream looked pure white with chocolate sauce or caramel sauce drizzled all over it with white chocolate flakes on top. also a choco stick in it with a piece of white chocolate on top for decoration. the server was very considerate and gave us the two spoon for it.I have to mention how much i loved the long spoon. It wasn't just any long spoon, but a spoon, that isespecially made to hook onto the glass. the middle was curved to zig zag shape so it can hook onto the side of the glass. I loved the design, made the parfait even more special.

The vanila ice cream was soft and ice cold. usually when parfait gets to the table it is half melting, but teh ice cream here is still ice cold, and I love how you dig deeper and you spoon a big heap of ICE COLD ice creamw ith some chocolate sauce. at the bottom is heaps of cornflakes which was refreshing and it adds bit more to the texture as it was crispy and not sweet. but by time got down to the bottom, i was already full. Atmosphere: i liked the atmosphere, It wasn't too busy although all seats and tables were taken, but was overly crowded where lots of people are lining up, and they are desperately waiting for you to hurry up and leave. we waited atleast 8-10 mins fro table, as we did not want to share a table. But in the end after we sat down, a couple sat opposite us on our table. the shop consist of 3 bench tables which i would say you can fir 4 on a table, and maybe 6 if you like to be squashed. There is also one long table facing the windows. so not much seats as the open kitchen took up half the shop. One thing I did not like was when you come in the sliding door, you are literally kicking the table infront of you. there are hardly any space between the table and the door. so you have to squeeze yourself through which was a hassle. The main colour of the shop is white, which makes it more spacious and kept it to minimal. there are washrooms behind which is small but clean. i likek small shops that has CLEAN washrooms and also a sink out for you tow ash your sticky hands after the sweet dessert. the shop is white but the banner is green.Conclusion: When we got there, it was full, so we decided wait outside which has a few seating outside. waited a while looking at the picture outside after few mins, a guy came out and asked us if we werew aiting. we said yes, but would liek table on our own. later he told u there is a free table. The menu is not PAGES long like other dessert shops, which confuse you as you want to try every single dessert. they have kept it simple here, parfaits, chocolates desserts, puddings etc. probably only 10 ranges of dessert then there is beverages. It was quite easy to make up my mind. but hang on, we all know what parfait is, but how hell we know what a devil chocolate is, or the chocolate box or even the honey box. it was real confusing, just reading the name and deciding what to eat. there are no pictures on the menu nor descriptions. There were no pictures inside the shop for me to find out what it is or how it looks and taste. so when i was ordering, I asked the guy who was serving us, he got his iphone out and showed me a picture of it, and I had keep asking him to describe them or go back to the pictures. He was helpful, but what if it gets really busy? He will have to show every single person who ask what it is, and have to describe what it is to them. won't he get tired and fed up?
as a costumer myself i would like to know WHAT I AM ORDERING, or what it looks like. Noone would like to order a ugly looking dessert, or order a dessert that they dont like the fillings of. instead of explaining and showing it to every single person, i think it is best to have pictures up or on the menu with description. this way, it will speed up service and costumers will have best understanding.

I really liked the devil chocolate. itw as everything i wanted in chocolate. the three textures and taste goes so well together. it looked so cute as a dome witha strawberry on top for decoration. Only thing is, it got a bit too sweet, that is where the parfait comes handy. the parfait was ice cold and refreshing. it refreshed my taste bud, so after a few spoons of the parfait, the Devil Chocolate tasted even nicer, and lost the sweetness. so i would definately recommend to have soemthing refreshing your taste bud.

The parfait by far was more disappointing. it was good, and I loved the spoon but it was nothing special. it was better parfait than other places i must admit, but compared to the other special looking dessert, this was not shining. the chocolate devil is made by 3 different layer of chocolate, someone designed nad made this and put together a good concept, the parfait was lack of this. The parfait is a parfait at the end of the day. But if it is your first time here, i would still recommend trying a good parfait because it is better than anywhere else. But next time when i come here I will try the other special dessert.

The desserts aren't expensive, round 30-40 hk dollars each. that isn't a lot when you compared to other dessert place that charges you 60-70 hk dollars. This is high quality dessert made with all their heart. i love how you can taste their the effort they put into this place. next time I will try the Honey box, and the green tea tofu pudding.

PS: They provide serviette which is very rare for deseert shops. You can tell they have actually 'thought' into what they costumers needs and how they can achieve best result.

The first time I went there to use the Open Rice voucher, it was closed. I wouldnever imagine an eatery in HK can be open from 5:00pm. I went again on 4 April at about 9pm. The place was completely full and I had to wait for a table. After a few minutes, the gentleman working there came out to apologize and offer to set a table and chair outside the shop for me. I ordered a chestnut parfait. I was impressed by the look of it - very substantial and nice looking presentation - including the spoon! Taste was good though a bit too sweet. Very nice dessert, especially if I do not have to worry about calories. Original price: $36, now only $18, with Open Rice voucher.

Dinner time in Tin Hau at 8, but i off work at 6, so i decided to join my friend to browse around the dinner place.We found that there are quite lots of dessert shops and my friend suggested others to go to this one, Pubbing.
And we went here after dinner. You know, in a group of 6, we had lots of things to talk and share, and we are not a quiet group. Therefore, we requested to sit outside instead of sitting inside the shop even there was an empty table.
Of course, the guy worker there would not say no.

After decorating the place and settling down, we started to choose the dessert. The guy introduced us all the dessert and explained each items in details. We only chose 4: Devil Cholocate, Strawberry Parfrait, Chocolate Ball, Apple Pie with Kiwi Sorbet

Devil Chocolate was nice
Chocolate brownie sheltered by smooth chocolate cheese mousse and bottomed by chocolate crunch. However, the chocolate flavour wasn't strong enough, could not be a devil.

Strawberry Parfrait was the one i like the most, they use all vanilla ice-cream instaed of using cream which make the thing more strong taste and more real. The strawberry sauce is a little bit not enough. The obstacle for this dessert was the ice-cream melted too fast. i thought it turned into milkshake in only 5 mins.

Chocolate Ball (orange flavour) was a chocolate fudge covered by orange flavour chocolate. The size was prefect, like a snack. I think the orange flavour can be a little bit stronger.

Apple Pie with Kiwi Sorbet was a mess. The pie didn't look like homemade, i means the texture was not good, the apple filling inside was just okay. The density of kiwi sorbet was very low. Although it was in a ball shape, but empty inside, what's happened?? And lastly, the strawberry sauce wasn't match with the whole thing, I don't think they need to add more colour into the dish.

The thing i buy from the shop was service, in no doubt. Their attitude was very great.

My locust friend and I have decided to go to Tai Hang after dinner specially for this newly opened dessert shop. The comments we've seen thus far are all quite positive, and the photos certainly looked tempting, so we were full of expectations when we arrived.

Straight to the desserts. We've ordered a caramel egg pudding (creme caramel?), a caramel milk pudding and a hot chocolate.

1) Caramel egg pudding and caramel milk pudding

The way the caramel egg pudding was the first disappointment (the caramel milk pudding as well, for that matter). When it arrived it was still in its metallic mould . Since the mould was not in line with the decor of the shop it was quite certain that that wasn't some "special" way of serving the pudding in this shop. We could only feel that they couldn't be bothered to serve the egg pudding properly. The texture of the puddings was also peculiar -- I'd go as far as saying that it was almost like a mousse instead of a pudding.

The taste of egg was faint at best and since the pudding was served upside down (since it was still in the mould) the caramel was at the bottom of the pudding, which due to the depth of the mould was not easy to reach. To make things worse, the exposed surface of the pudding was slightly rubbery (this would likely go unnoticed had the pudding been served the right side up).

The caramel milk pudding have similar problem with its texture -- which was even more mousse-like than the egg pudding. The milk flavour was noticeable but not strong.

Please do feel free to enlighten me if there is significant difference between a caramel egg pudding and a creme caramel and that my expectations were completely misguided. In that case I shall stand corrected but nonetheless comment that the caramel egg pudding and the caramel milk pudding were disappointing and not worth the money spent.

2) Hot chocolate

The first shock for the hot chocolate came when I saw it being taking out of what looked like a microwave (!!!). The taste of the chocolate was reasonably good and one could tell that some milk has been used to prepare the drink. It is, of course, impossible and unfair to compare this chocolate with place like Vero or JPH or any of the proper chocolatiers, but for a similar price one could get a better hot chocolate (in terms of flavour and smoothness and presentation) at Habitu. The Habitu one will be much larger as well.

3) Environment

This little shop in Tai Hang was small but comfy. And the staff was reasonably nice. And the toilets were clean and tidy. Until the moment the compressor of the ice-cream or softie or whatever-making machine is turned on , which happened twice during the time we were here. The rattling noise of that machine was so loud and deafening that we felt we were suddenly transported to the engine room of a Star Ferry. Or the AHU of a large building. Or right next to some road works. A casual check with the iPhone sound level meter has recorded over 70dB(A) at where we sat, which was unacceptable even for health and safety alone. I could not comprehend 1) why such an old, noisy machine is used and 2) why on Earth it couldn't be placed elsewhere where its noise wouldn't affect the diners and the staff.

Although the noise only lasted for around half a minute for both occasions, it completely ruined the peaceful ambience created by the decor and furnitures. The owner should really deal with this obviously solvable problem!