Chung Kee Dessert

Chun Kee is a very popular dessert shop in Hong Kong. It just happened I lived nearby. Yay! Plenty of choices, all of which are good. Whenever I take my out-​of-​town friends, I like to challenge them to the durian desserts. #stinky (I don’t like it myself but I think everyone should give it a try.)
For the less adventurous, the coconut milk based and the fruit based desserts are very nice. I also like the desserts called «Halo». My friends always joke Chinese like to make everything into something «healthy», including desserts. Halo is exactly that. It has barley, beans, and a variety of food-​that-​is-​supposed-​to-​be-​good-​for-​you in it.
So pick your poison (?) and bon appetite!

We came here around 8:30 pm and it was packed. With a party of 16, you heard that right, 16 people, we got a seat within 15 minutes, quite impressive. The desserts literally came minutes right after our order. I had the bean curd skin in milk with green tea «tong yune» with egg (hot dessert), quite delicious it was. I tried my friend’s dessert, some sort of «tofu fa» with red bean and this was also good too, not too sweet. This dessert place has several locations and expect to pay about $ 4 USD for each dessert unless you choose the fancy ones. The customers don’t lounge around or else the waiter will cause you to leave soon if you are finished, so you should get a seat pretty quick. Service is good and quick. It’s not really a good place for a date, quite loud at times.

very popular dessert shop, perfect for those hot summer days. pretty much can’t go wrong with fruits and jellies, shaved ice etc, but also nice to try the puddings, sesame, almond milk, stuffed glutinous rice balls, etc.

It is curious to see how Hong Kong people love going to dessert places. One of my many postulations is that there are little places to go after dinner while the meeting group would hate to dismiss that soon. Dessert places have thus become a place where people could sit round the table, and talk for the rest of the night while having something to munch on. Chung Kee is one of those places, but serving up real good desserts.
You know this place has to be good judging from the cramped seats and the long line out of the shop. You could also tell when the waiters are not particularly friendly and hospitable, tend to be impatient when you are taking your time in placing orders, and occupying their seats for too long while being very efficient and would never go wrong with your orders. I call it the HK style of efficiency and Chung Kee is almost a role model of that.
Back to the food; in spite of the many fancy names and combinations of desserts, I go for the basics as it often could tell how good or bad the joint is. Classics such as bean curd sheets with ginkgo nuts and barley sweet soup could often go terribly wrong, but definitely not this place. The ginkgo nuts and barley are surprisingly not overcook and remain «al dente» which gives a lot of chew in every positive ways to the otherwise silky smooth bean curd sheet solution. Some like it with eggs but I’m not one of them, you can try adding it and see whether it tastes better.
Durian desserts are also very nice in here; if you love durian as much as I do then you definitely can’t miss the related items here. The durian related desserts come in various forms in both liquid and solid, which all gives out gas that is heavily scented with durian. How could it be bad if you can enjoy your favorite fruit in all 3 states of matter? For those who hate the smell of durian, I would suggest you to turn away now.
What took me by surprise in this dessert shop is their Bubur cha cha. Normally this Malaysian dessert is rather watery with sago and some beans and taro in it. The Chung Kee rendition is more like a bean salad than anything else and it feels like you are eating 2 bowls of rice at the same time; I was totally shocked seeing a bowl of dessert as substantial as this, especially when I just had dinner. However, i have to give credit to the fact that the beans were cooked well and actually it tasted good. If you come with an empty stomach, I am quite sure that you will be happy seeing that.