Contributed by Gengta Tan: Hong Kong – Hui Lau Shan (Healthy Dessert Restaurant)

Hui Lau Shan focuses on fresh fruit, especially mango, and sago or tapioca. They do offer some red bean, grass jelly, and black sesame traditional Chinese desserts, but it’s not their main focus. Hui Lau Shan is a great place for any time of the day. They have an extensive menu so it will take you ages to get through it, although it’s almost all variations of mango and sago.

Restaurant: Hui Lau Shan

Location: Multiple locations in Hong Kong… everywhere!

Price Range: $15-40HKD – about $2-5CAD

Ratings:

Food: 5.5

Service: 2.5

Ambiance: 3

Overall: 5

Additional comments:

The most popular and famous dessert place in Hong Kong

Dessert chain ‘restaurant’

Healthy desserts

Fruit desserts (focus on mango)

Extensive menu

Specializes in fresh mango desserts

Traditional Chinese desserts (that are good!)

Quick, casual

Busy/crowded/line-ups

Affordable

Small selection of savoury snack foods

English and Chinese menu with photos

Somewhat self-serve

Eat in/Take-out

Cash only

**Recommendations: Sago in Mango Juice with Extra Mango and mango ice cream, Sago in Mango Juice with Pomelo extra mango and mango ice cream, Mango mochi, Mango pudding with Hokkaido milk & yogurt filling

This is one of the must visit places when you are in Hong Kong. Hui Lau Shan is the most popular restaurant in Hong Kong for quick and healthy desserts. It’s a massive chain restaurant and they’re everywhere. There’s even one at the Hong Kong airport. It’s very casual eats and it’s more of a sit down and eat in 15 minutes kind of place. They’re so busy all the time that it’s common to share table with other diners. This is almost the only place serving Chinese dessert that I like, and that’s because it’s barely Chinese at all.

Mango Sampler Platter – 4/6, about $45HKD – about $6CAD

This is a good idea if you want to sample other items. It comes with these 3 standard desserts so you can’t chose. If you know what you like here, than there’s not point on ordering this because they have better stuff than what’s on this sampler platter.

Crystal Jelly with Mango and Mango Ice Cream – 4/6

I really like this, but I still wouldn’t order it separately because I prefer the sago instead of crystal jelly.

Crystal jelly tastes like a slightly sweetened and relatively neutral tasting jello. combines with the mango it tastes almost like mango jelly. You end up barely chewing the crystal jelly because it’s so soft and chopped up. The mango ice cream is NOT TO BE MISSED! It’s pretty much pure frozen mango pulp! You can taste the frozen fibrous strands of real mango and it’s awesome! It’s almost like sorbet and more icy than it is cream based. I don’t even know if there’s dairy in this actually. It’s creamy from the mango, but not creamy with dairy.

Mango with Mango Juice and Glutinous Rice Balls – 3.5/6

They don’t water down the mango juice here. It’s so delicious and rich in mango flavour. Hong Kong has very sweet mangoes. I just didn’t like the glutinous rice balls. They’re almost like the black bubble pearls, but they’re starchy and not as flavourful. They’re denser and harder mochi balls with nothing inside.

Mango Mochi with Fresh Mango - 5/6

I actually love the mango mochi here. It has a very soft and squishy mochi skin that’s rolled in coconut. You can order these mochi in 3 or in 6. They skin is chewy, but also very soft that it doesn’t require much chewing. I actually liked it better than the authentic Japanese mochi from Japanese Deli Sweets Mochi Cream. Inside the mochi is filled with fresh pureed mango! It’s so good! Even the mango skin is made from mango. It’s just a creamy bite of sweet mango in all of it’s wonderful textures.