Milk Tea & Bolo Bun Given Whimsical Spin At Dominique Ansel’s Hong Kong Cafe

Dominique Ansel — the man behind the famous Cronut, a croissant-doughnut hybrid pastry that took the world by storm, and the Cookie Shot, a soft chocolate chip cookie shaped like a shot glass filled with milk — has recently set up shop in Hong Kong. Probably not the best of times to do so, but his newest outpost, Dang Wen Li By Dominique Ansel, opened last month at Hong Kong’s Ocean Terminal. It serves really cute Hong Kong-inspired desserts and snacks.

For the uninitiated, Dominique Ansel is a French pastry chef who once worked at French bakery chain Fauchon, and was later executive pastry chef of Daniel Boulud’s three-Michelin-star restaurant Daniel in New York. Dominique opened his first Dominique Ansel Bakery in Manhattan in 2011, where he made a name for himself with his unique creations such as the Cronut. These bakes are also served in his eponymous bakeries in London and Los Angeles. Dominique has won the James Beard Award for Outstanding Pastry Chef in 2014 and was named the World’s Best Pastry Chef at the World’s 50 Best Awards in 2017.

Dang Wen Li is a nod to the chef's name Dominique in Cantonese. According to a South China Morning Post article, Ansel said: We finally decided that we can’t replicate anything — we weren’t just going to do a Dominique Ansel Bakery.” So in a bid to bring something new to the table, Ansel and Upper East Holdings, the company behind Lady M crepe cakes, took over two years to come up with the concept and menu for Dang Wen Li unique. One of the major decisions that the team made was to not include the signature Cronut, Frozen S’mores and Chocolate Chip Cookie Shots on the menu, instead deciding to translate the desserts into something suitable for the Hong Kong market.

So what’s on the menu at Dang Wen Li?

To replace the popular Chocolate Chip Cookie Shot, Dang Wen Li serves up the Hong Kong Milk Tea Cookie Shot that’s shaped like a Yakult bottle, something most of us in Asia are familiar with. The brown sugar-flavoured cookie is served with a tiny pitcher of house-made milk tea instead of the usual vanilla-infused milk that comes with the Cookie Shot. Yum.

Instead of the savoury and briny street food fave version, these “fish balls” are made with fried glutinous flour balls filled with red bean ice cream mochi. Each made-to-order skewer comes with four of these sweet orbs.

Black & White branded cans of evaporated milk is a familiar sight in HK cha chaan tengs. This milk can-shaped number is a tribute to that: salted caramel panna cotta with a rum-soaked cake centre encapsulated in a white chocolate “tin”.

The iconic breakfast bun is reimagined as a cake made with coconut mousse and coconut dacquoise buns. While the original pineapple bun doesn’t actually contain any pineapples (it just resembles one), DWL’s version has a pineapple passionfruit jam in the centre along with salted mascarpone cream shaped like a slab of butter.

One of the few savoury items on the menu, the Silk Egg Katsu Sando boasts crispy panko-crusted fluffy steamed egg set atop house-made milk bread slathered with XO mayonnaise sauce. A fun, elegant nod to the fluffy egg sarnies in cha chaan tengs.

While this looks exactly like a regular lemon tea juice box (a fave with Hongkongers) with its bright yellow colour and plastic straw, it's actually a cake made with earl grey mascarpone mousse filled with bergamot curd. Super cute and retro.

Inspired by macaroni soup in cha chaan tengs, this elbow-shaped pasta is actually lemon cheesecake made using French white cheese and Italian ricotta cheese. The macaroni cheesecake is set atop an almond biscuit, with white chocolate “ham” and marshmallow “carrots” and crispy “peas”.

A twist on The Blossoming Hot Chocolate that’s available in New York and Los Angeles, the Hong Kong version features a pretty double-layered chrysanthemum marshmallow flower that blooms when placed in a cup of hot chocolate instead of the usual plain marshmallow flower.

We’re no strangers to savoury piping hot soup dumplings, but Dang Wen Li’s sweet version is a mango vanilla mousse cake with crispy almond biscuit, the centre of the cake containing fresh mango chunks. The xiao long bao-shaped cake is then plated with a white chocolate “cabbage” leaf.

One of the must-haves when you’re in Hong Kong is the egg tart. Dang Wen Li has created its own version, combining another HK classic of egg rolls, with egg tarts by creating a flaky egg roll tuile (wafer) crust filled with a silky custard centre that’s been baked till caramelised.

While the popular Cronut doesn’t make an appearance on the Hong Kong menu, another best-selling item from Dominique Ansel Bakery New York, the Dominique’s kouign amann, is for sale. Think of it as a denser, sweeter, caramelised croissant of sorts. Other items from the HQ branch also sold here include the Pain Au Chocolat, Croissant, Almond Croissant and Ham and Cheese Croissant.

Dang Wen Li by Dominique Ansel is at Shop OT G63A, G/F, Ocean Terminal, Hong Kong, Tsim Sha Tsui, Harbour City, 3-27 Canton Road. Tel: 2613-8618. Open Mon-Thurs 10am-9.30pm, Fri-Sun 10am-10pm. https://dangwenli.com

Photos: Dang Wen Li/Facebook and OpenRice/HighTeaMama