4D Hong Kong Foodie Trip: Via Tokyo, Causeway Bay
It always feels sad when you are on your last day of your travelling. While it may feel good to be back to the familiar setting of daily lifestyle, you have to be ready with the challenges which come with it. Since reality is so hard to live in, I decided to have my favourite food in the world in my last day in Hong Kong, ice cream. Yumz. It is not difficult to find an ice cream shop in Hong Kong because the city embraces dessert cafe culture and every dessert cafe guarantees a long queue in front of its door especially on a weekend. I have heard so many raves on the appearance of many Japanese cafes in Hong Kong but have not had chance until today to try them out. Soe is kindly enough to bring us to a popular Japanese dessert cafe in Hong Kong, Via Tokyo, which happens to be located near to our hotel. Win-win.
Since the size of the cafe is not too big, there are not many seating available inside the cafe. This means one thing, you have to queue outside. Via Tokyo is pretty strict about rules. For instance, all the diners must have already reached and there is a minimum order imposed (one item per person).
However, since Via Tokyo has an abundant selection of desserts to select from, I don't think the regulation is hard to met. Similar to other Japanese dessert cafe, Via Tokyo puts a lot of pride in its matcha ice cream. A lot of parfaits which involve matcha ice cream are displayed on their menu such as Fruit Matcha Soft Cream Shiratama Anmitsu (HKD 56). If you prefer to just have the ice cream without any other toppings, you may want to go for their ice cream cone (HKD 34 for matcha flavor/ HKD 32 for original cream flavor).
If you are not a fan of matcha ice cream, Via Tokyo provides other flavour such Houjicha (HKD 34 for cone/ HKD 36 for cup). Japanese cafe is known for their knack to provide limited edition depending on the season. It's kinda make changing of season pretty much interesting though.
Since we actually have not really recovered from the lunch + coffee + bubble tea that we consumed earlier, we tried to mix and match our orders so that we would not be overwhelmed by let's say overabundant of cakes or ice creams. I could not really explain well on how good the ice cream is as I am not an expert in the ice cream world. But, the black sesame soft serve (HKD 36) is nicely flavoured, not so sweet plus it's so enjoyable to eat soft serve ice cream because of its softer texture compared to normal ice cream sold in the supermarket.
The Green Tea Cream Roll (HKD 40) from Via Tokyo is so fluffy and it literally sent me to matcha heaven. From each bite of the roll I can feel the lightly sweet sponge and the melt-in-your-mouth green tea cream. I love the fact that Via Tokyo uses Uji Matcha for all their matcha products. After all Kyoto is the best matcha-producing area in Japan.
If you have the time, you should pop up to the next door shop, Mammy Pancake for their HK style egg pancakes (egglettes) and waffles. Mammy Pancake's popularity definitely does not lose to its neighbour, Via Tokyo. Soe and R5 have to queue for a while before they came back with a bag of Chocolate Chip Egg Pancakes (HKD 18) and Peanut Butter Waffles (HKD 16).
It is better to consume both food while they are hot but since we were hanging out at Via Tokyo, this is not viable because the waiter at Via Tokyo definitely will not allow us to consume outside food at Via Tokyo. While the egg pancake and the waffle are enjoyable and make a nice tidbit to munch on while checking out the city of Hong Kong, I would not say that they are fantastic. Nice to enjoy ut that's pretty much it.
Via Tokyo is located at:
Shop 1-A/1-B, G/F Leishun Court
106 - 126 Leighton Road,
Causeway Bay, Hong Kong
Opening hours:
Daily 11AM - 10.30PM
Mammy Pancake is located at:
Shop 17, G/F Leishun Court
1 - 5 Haven Street,
Causeway Bay, Hong Kong
Opening hours:
Daily 12PM - 8.30PM