In the basement of the Sogo department store in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong, you can find many Japanese stores specialized in ice cream and sweet pastry. Even when you cannot be in Japan, you can still taste some of their delicious desserts there. I will discuss three shops that I recommend: Mazazu crepe, Milk top, and Beard Papa's.
Mazazu crepe
Mazazu crepe is a very famous, Japanese crepe chain store. Japanese crepes are thin pancakes similar to the French ones, filled with cream and fruit, and rolled up in an ice cone shape. I was surprised to find a branch of Mazazu crepe in Hong Kong, located in the basement of the Sogo department store in Causeway Bay. That time, I was really in a dilemma, trying to choose between a crepe and an ice cream cone. Eating both would be too much, since I just had lunch and I noticed this small store hidden behind the escalator on my way back upstairs. But as always, ice cream is forever my first choice. ^_^ The store only sells the soft serve ice cream in two flavors: Hokaido milk and one seasonal flavor. Back then, the seasonal flavor was Melon and I just had to taste it. Currently, they are having the Sakura flavor. I wish I could have a taste of that too. The melon soft serve ice cream that I did get to taste was very refreshing and not too heavy in cream. The fruit flavor was also very natural and not artificial at all.
So whenever you see the cute Mother's Mazazu crepe logo, just line up and order something. I can really recommend it. They have stores in Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea, Canada, and China. You can find the Mazazu crepe Hong Kong website
here.
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| The Mezazu crepe Hong Kong website. |
Milk Top
This store has very delicious milk puddings and ice cream in a large variety of flavors. Often, they have ice cream in special, traditional Japanese flavors as well, like Hokkaido seaweed, Sakura, Chestnut, Sweet potato, Green tea, and Japanese sake. I have tasted the pudding both in milk and strawberry flavor and the two ice cream flavors that I chose were: Green tea and Cookies & cream. This is the website of Milk Top (in Japanese). The milk puddings that come in an adorable glass jar were really creamy and delicious. The milk taste is very strong, not bland like supermarket ones.
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| Very creamy |
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| Pudding in milk and strawberry milk flavor. |
The green tea flavor of the green tea ice cream was
quite strong and the cookies & cream ice cream tasted very good too. However, it
wasn't really special, but maybe it was due to the safe
flavors that I chose.
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| Green tea and cookies & cream |
Beard papa's
Founded in Osaka, Beard Papa's now has more than 250 stores around the world including Japan, China, Taiwan, Singapore, UK, Australia, USA as well as Hong Kong. This store sells the most delicious looking cream puffs and cakes. Just deciding which one to take, was giving me a headache.
