Who doesn't like to end dinner on a sweet note? We went to two well-known Cantonese restaurants and asked their pastry chefs to reveal the secrets behind their signature desserts.
Chilled sago cream with mango is undoubtedly a Hong Kong favourite, and one of the best in town has got to be at the Renaissance Hong Kong Harbour View Hotel's newly renovated Dynasty restaurant. Chef Ng Ngok-fung, who oversees the dessert station and has been with the restaurant since the hotel's inception, has made the dessert according to the same recipe for the past 25 years, and he has seen how popular it is among the award-winning eatery's diners.
The key to a good chilled sago cream with mango are premium ingredients and patience, says Ng, who only uses carabao mangoes from the Philippines for the dish's exotic aroma, and labours over Thai pomelos, removing each individual pulp by hand in the traditional way. The result is a velvety smooth mango cream with generous amounts of crunchy pomelo and sago.
Where Dynasty sticks with traditional, tried-and-tested recipes, Yue at the City Garden Hotel opts for contemporary twists. The Michelin-starred restaurant's latest offering includes a chilled roselle and rose tea pudding with red bean purée - a healthy and modern take on the humble red bean pudding. Roselle, a species of hibiscus, is an unusual ingredient for desserts because of its acidic taste, but executive chef Lai Ching-shing found that its sourness went well with the otherwise dense and sweet red bean. Lai also sources adzuki beans from Japan for their sweeter taste. The roselle jelly, translucent and ruby-red, is presented atop a square of red bean purée and sprinkled with dried rose petals. It is a popular choice among women due to the health benefits of roselle and adzuki beans, and its pretty layers, Lai says.