Gongau Cha 港究茶 Wongtee Plaza 皇庭廣場店 (Shenzhen, CHINA) ★★★★☆

The clock was down to about half an hour left before our dinner table's ready. With another 30 minutes of Me Time, I decided to swing by Gongau Cha (港究茶) for a sip of my favorite pantyhose milk tea.

Gongau Cha is a collaboration between 7 Hong Kong-style milk tea champions who decided to join forces to offer some of the best "silk stocking" milk tea (港式絲襪奶茶) in the market.

Even for milk tea, Gongau Cha offers a number of options with different formulas. I was also curious of the "ice fire" toast served with thick slabs of frozen butter.

Silk stocking milk tea champion (冠軍絲襪奶茶) – The most popular brand of Hong Kong style milk tea developed together by the 7 champions. This was a milk tea lover's dream.

The tea exuded a delightful fragrance and richness (can tell by its color) accompanied by tremendous velvety thickness. I am impressed!

With my Peking duck dinner coming up shortly, I finally decided to pass on the butter toast for now. Until next time then...

Price: ¥¥¥

Address: Shop No.66, Level 1 Wongtee Plaza, 118 Fuhua Road, Futian, Guangzhou, China

深圳市福田区福华三路118号皇庭广场 L1-66铺

Closest Metro Station: Convention & Exhibition Centre (會展中心)

Tel: +86 (755) 18718325762

Opening Hours: 10:30am - 11:00pm daily

Map: https://j.map.baidu.com/cd/02Ki

 

NiNi’s Cake Wongtee Plaza 皇庭廣場店 (Shenzhen, CHINA) ★★★☆☆

There wasn’t much happening for us this weekend. Little nugget had a number of classes scheduled on Saturday and Sunday; and the plan was to lay low for the rest of the day. When it comes to food, we’ll simply grab something quick in our hood. Nothing fancy. But things were about to heat up when Jelloman popped the question, “don’t think there will be train tickets available to Futian this late right?”.

That got the ball rolling and the next thing I knew, we were already on a taxi on our way to West Kowloon. It was already 2pm.

As planned, we arrived at Futian’s Wongtee Plaza (皇庭廣場) a little after 3pm. Since we already decided to have Peking duck dinner tonight, there was no point for us to have another late lunch at this stage. So, we hurried up to get ourselves a ticket at Jingwei Zhang Roast Duck Restsurant (京味張烤鴨店) and before returning for an early dinner there at 4:30pm, we headed off to NiNi’s Cake for a round of sweet treats to kill some time off the clock.

NiNi’s Cake is a French patisserie and cafe I spotted on my last visit to Wongting around CNY. They have some amazing cakes on display including one that looked like a fire cracker (炮仗). Very eye catching. 🧨

Strawberry passion fruit (莓果慕斯) (¥43) – Inside the crust made with strawberry flavored white chocolate was a layer of strawberry mousse.

This came with a sponge cake base and a centre of strawberry ganache. I didn’t get the chance to try it myself but I assumed that’s also where the passion fruit was hiding, right in the middle of the sponge.

Peach, cream cheese, earl grey (桃礼) (¥43) – Here we have a slice of peach 🍑 sitting on top of some cream cheese. The base was a crepe pouch filled with peach and cream. OK.

Hazelnut praline, dulce, coffee (香草榛果) (¥48) – I am an absolute sucker for hazelnut praline (榛果帕林內) so this should be right up my alley.

I thought it was by far the best out of the three we tried this afternoon. Yes, the hazelnut praline could have been richer in flavors, especially the nuttiness part (It was more creamy than nutty) but all in all, the hazelnut praline, crushed hazelnuts and caramel (menu did say coffee) worked well together as a team.

Food Rating: 5.5/10

Price: ¥¥¥

Address: Shop L2-6, Level 2 Wongtee Plaza Exit C, 118 Fuhua Road, Futian, Guangzhou, China

深圳市福田区福华三路118号皇庭广场西門 L2-6铺

Closest Metro Station: Convention & Exhibition Centre (會展中心)

Tel: +86 (755) 13570811368

Opening Hours: 10:00am - 10:00pm daily

Map: https://j.map.baidu.com/6e/Q4ii

Men Tong Bing Sutt at Mall of the World South 文通冰室 花城匯南店 (Guangzhou, CHINA) ★★★☆☆

I underestimated the effort going from Liwan District (荔灣區) to Tianhe District (天河區), and by the time we arrived at the foot of Canton Tower (广州塔), we only had an hour and a half left before our train departs for Hong Kong.

Just enough time for a very short meal at Mall of the World (花城匯) before we say goodbye to Guangzhou. This is a pretty nice name for a mall, isn't it?

I wasn't going to shop around for a nice restaurant. Not with the amount of time left. Instead a familiar name like Men Tong Bing Sutt (文通冰室) would do the trick for me.

I had their “little bear milk tea (小熊奶茶)” last time I paid them a visit at Central Link. Didn't realize that it has a twin brother, “little bear lemon tea (小熊檸檬茶)”. This looked so cool!

While Jelloman was enjoying her lemon tea, I went for my milk tea fix which I didn't get the chance for in the morning.

BBQ pork with fried eggs and rice (黯然銷魂飯) – This is just a fancy name for fried eggs and char siu on steamed rice.

The char siu was way too fatty for me. Not good....

This trip to Guangzhou was really long overdue. My last one had to date back some 20 years ago and it was a business trip which was pretty hectic as I recalled. Of cuz, I didn't have the spare time to check out the city on my own so this was really my first-ever exploration on some of the major tourist attractions in town. I hope it won't take another 20 years for my next trip back.

Food Rating: 4.5/10

Price: ¥¥

Address: Shop No.3001, Mall of the World South, 89 Huacheng Dadao, Tianhe District, Guangzhou, China

广州市天河区花城大道89号花城匯南区3001铺

Closest Metro Station: Huacheng Dadao (花城大道)

Opening Hours: 11:00am - 10:00pm daily

Map: https://j.map.baidu.com/46/Gu-f