Cheuk Hong Kong Style Cafe, Dominion Road

Since the first post was a European style cafe and desserts, I thought this time it would be nice to post about Eastern style desserts.

Cheuk Cafe is a small Hong Kong style cafe located on the busy Dominion Road. Although very distinctive inside, the cafe itself is very easily missed. As you are getting closer to the address, be sure to drive a bit slower to save you the effort of turning the car back round. 

With the mass amount of photos of the foods and desserts they made as well at their menu all collaged on their window piece by piece,  the cafe on the outside somehow can always be mistaken to be closed or even mistaken as an empty store space! So please do scroll down at the end of the post to make sure you get the right address and their opening days and hours so you don't miss out.

If you're a fan of Chinese food and/or been to the lively city of Hong Kong, you'll know how delicious Hong Kong style desserts are. I have been to Hong Kong many times myself thus I sometimes do like to think that I now can distinguish a sense of authenticity of Chinese foods in New Zealand, particularly in desserts. 

There are a couple of other Hong Kong style cafes around Auckland but after trying out a few, Cheuk Cafe is by far ranking in first place for deliverance of exceptional Hong Kong desserts in all aspects of variety, taste, authenticity, and price. 

Well anyway, enough of the boring long intro, let's look at some of the highly enjoyable treats from Cheuk cafe. 

Mango Pomelo & Sago Sweet Soup with Homemade Mango Ice Cream

Pomelo sweet soup is pretty popular and common among Hong Kongers on any occassion and is perfect for any season, with its light and refreshing taste. In a way you, could say that this sweet soup is a representitive of Hong Kong of the Eastern sweet soup category. Luckily, Cheuk Cafe has been able to bring these flavours for us who reside in Auckland.

Incase you don't know what a Pomelo fruit is, it is basically a small citrus fruit commonly found in Asia. The sweet soup is served cold. Even though in the photo it looks creamy, the taste and texture itself was very light, but not runny, and had a hint of tangy and sour taste (most likely produced by the citrus of the Pomelo and Mango ) then leaving us with a sweet mango aftertaste. The homemade mango ice cream gives the soup that extra mango flavour hit and at the same time continuing to keep the sweet soup cold. The mango pieces and sago bits were good complements to the soup, giving you something to eat at the same time, making it less boring as opposed to straight sipping the soup off the spoon. 

Creme Brulee

Cheuk Cafe makes a really good creme brulee. I say that it's good because their version of creme brulee suits to Asian tastes, of course when I say that I don't speak for the entire Asian race. Usually when it comes to desserts, most Asian tastes, especially for the people that live in the Asia continent who are not that used to much heavier and sweeter Western style foods, normally prefer their sweets to be of smaller portions, less sweet, and less heavy in terms of cream and fats. Cheuk Cafe makes this [Asian style] of creme brulee very well and exactly caters to  Asian taste buds. The creme brulee is smaller in size compared to other restaurants and cafes. Even though the hardened sugar coating on top didn't cover the entire custard, it was still thin and crispy, and easily cracked into with a spoon. The custard itself was more egg based, rather than cream, not too sweet and so smooth that it dissolved in your mouth as soon as you put it in. 

Mango Fondant

I'm sure most people have had, or at least seen, chocolate fondant aka chocolate lava cake. Because of the popularity of chocolate fondant, the idea of Mango Fondant offered on the menu really appealed to me. Paired with the cool and creamy vanilla ice cream, inside the soft cake was a hot and runny mango puree. The puree was more citrus rather than sweet but as I'm not a fan of hot/warm fruit desserts, this was a bit hard for me to finish. If you're like me then luckily for us, Cheuk cafe also offers chocolate fondant and a Matcha Green Tea fondant (although I am not too sure whether this is still available as it may have been a limited edition item). 

Baked Tapioca Pudding with Taro

Just the name itself is both confusing and interesting right? It's one of those desserts and names where you either know everything about or have no utter idea what it is. In my opinion, this dessert seems more like a Macao dessert rather than a Hong Kong one, and that is just because of the caramelised brown parts on the top of the dessert which is quite commonly seen in desserts from Macao, for example Macao's infamous Portuguese Tarts. The most distinguishing aspect of this dessert that I immediately noticed was that although the colour of it is yellow, the main ingredient to make the pudding is more flour based rather than egg. I could tell as the top part of the pudding was a baked layer of flour skin. The texture inside was still smooth as most likely there was a liquid product of milk or cream used in the mixture. The dessert is served very hot, just like it coming straight out of the oven so you'll be to be a bit careful with this one. The taro is the purple bit inside the pudding as you can see on the right hand side of the photo. The taro put inside the pudding was baked very well, moist and sweet, and not to mention the mesmerizing natural purple colour that made it more aesthetically enjoyable as well.

Coconut Pudding with Mango Filling

I think the flavours of coconut and mango together complement each other too well so it's commonly seen on Eastern dessert menus. The coconut pudding with the mango center was an ideal treat for those hot summer nights. The coconut pudding was smooth but it was quite hard to taste the flavour of coconut cream, assuming that is what they used to make the pudding. In addition, the strong mango scent overpowered the coconut flavour. Even so, Cheuk cafe does deserve appraisal for using real fresh mango fruits to blend into their puree as apposed to some places where you can just taste that the mango came from a can. 

Mango Crepes

The mango crepes were simple and simply delicious. The crepes were slightly chewy and very thin. Wrapped inside were two to three slices of fresh mango with a side of fresh cream, then drizzled with some mango syrup. Since cream itself is quite heavy and filling, I suggest that you don't eat too much of this on it's own if you wanna try some of the other desserts as these crepes could easily get you filled up.

Lychee Panna Cotta

Lychee Panna Cotta was another dessert on Cheuk cafe's menu that caught my attention since it seemed more unsusul and uncommon (in a good way) to me. Since panna cotta is cooked cream, Cheuk cafe altered it's recipe very well. I think it might have been because lychee juice was added to the cream during the cooking process, the panna cotta wasn't as smooth as their creme brulee and puddings. When you spoon it, you will see that the lychee juice combined with cream doesn't exactly bond perfectly and there is the slightest separation. Although this being said, it still doesn't compromise the taste of it. 

HK Style Milk Tea

Saving the best for last! If you're not in the mood for sweet foods, Cheuk cafe also provides the options of a range of hot and cold drinks. I remember the day I went to the cafe was a bit cooler so I decided to go with a hot drink. This milk tea is by far the best HK style milk tea I've had so far! It is really authentic to the 'Pantyhose Milktea' they make in HK. 

Just incase you are wondering, the name 'Pantyhose Milktea' is just a literal translation to the drinks name said in Cantonese. The way this name came about is because they way milk tea is made in HK is by brewing it by filling a long thin cotton bag with each cafes own blend of tea leaves. Putting the bag in a teapot of hot boiling water, the long bag with the loose tea leaves inside are brewed using a pulled motion over and over until you get a strong blend of black tea. As baristas make so many pots of tea in HK each day, over time the bag becomes very stained from the the leaves, thus resulting in it looking like a pantyhose stocking. 

Back to the milk tea. Cheuk cafe is probably the only place so far where I would recommend people to try out if they want a genuine HK style tea. Although I have no idea what their secret blend of tea is [or even if they have one], they have brought the flavours of HK tea to Auckland. The drink comes unsweetened so you can add as much sugar to your liking. I usually prefer not to add any sugar because with their [secret] blend of tea leaves, and milk, or it may have been Carnation's Evaporated Milk which is commonly used by Hong Kong cafes, you can taste the smoothness and creaminess of the tea. 

[Updated]

Double Layer Milk Custard

I actually have no idea what 'Double Layer Milk' is except that the name is directly translated from its Chinese one off HK cafe menus. 
With a little Googling, apparently this is a custard/pudding made through a process of boiling and steaming fresh milk, and eventually developing two thin-oil layers,  hence the name 'Double Layer Milk'. 
To be honest, I could not see or taste any of those unique features from this dessert but that doesn't mean that this wasn't a good dessert. This dessert had the option of it being served hot or cold, and I chose having it cold. 
As you can see in the photo, the top layer of the dessert is a skin of dried milk, kinda like that layer of skin of milk after being microwaved, which to me is not that favourable. But this layer wasn't as bad as the kind we'd get from microwaved milk. The texture was thankfully smooth and similar to panna cotta. It was lightly sweetened, and had a heavy full milk taste. I'd say this would be a good option and substitute for those who don't quite favour egg based desserts or ones that are too sweet. 
I'm quite curious as to what the hot version of this would be like. That'll definitely be one to try next time, especially now being the Winter season, it should be a nice warm treat!

Mango Souffle

When I first saw on the menu 'Mango Souffle' I was really curious as to what it would taste like and what sort of texture it would be. Turns out that the menu writers and the dessert chefs at Cheuk had a different understanding to the term 'souffle' compare to what I had in mind, and probably the majority of people.
So it turns out that their 'mango souffle' was acutally a Mango flavoured mousse! Nonetheless, the misused term didn't at all affect the quality of the dessert. Anything that contains mango as the main ingredient at Cheuk have always been made so well. The souffle/mousse was really light and foamy, I guess a more precise way to put it is that it is really 'whipped'. Although really light and slightly dense in texture, it contained a fresh scent and sweetness of mango with cream to it. To me, the only downfall to this was the size and proportion of it being to small, well at least for me, otherwise this would be good for those looking for a small and light dessert to satisfy that sweet tooth without the guilt of the calories. 

Besides desserts, Cheuk cafe also offers proper light and quick Chinese dinners as well as small savoury side dishes. The environment inside is bright and cheerful and the cafe provides a range of mangas, magazines, and novelty games for small casual Saturday night gatherings with your friends. 

For the desserts and the drinks, the price ranges from $4.00 to $7.00 for more exotic dishes such as ones containing Durian or a lyche milkshake. As or the food, from what I recall it was about $10 or $12. 

Although the outside of the cafe doesn't seem that encouraging, Cheuk's is a place that is very genuine and authentic in their use of ingredients as well as in taste. If you're ever driving along or passing through Dominion Road, it is definiatly a place to quickly stop by or make time for. 

Cheuk's Cafe is located on:
466 Dominion Road
Mt Eden
Auckland 1024
(09) 511 3013
Opening Hours: Mon to Sat 5pm to 12am (Sun Closed)

Until next time!

The 'Sweet Tooth' Fairy xo