World of Desserts - Tong Pak Fu (Đường Bá Hổ)

These days most of the new eating business is created for the youth - they are surely the biggest spender. Last night I've been to a quite new dessert place - named after a famous Chinese poet of 15th century, Tong Pak Fu (Đường Bá Hổ). I don't know is there any connection between the desserts and the poet, maybe the sweetness in his poem, the tasty love in his words? 

The place is very Chinese in many details: the dessert and its name, the decoration and staff working there : the waiter and even the cashier-lady! 

The business seems quite busy in the evening but we quickly found an empty table inside but I noticed the red light, it's not really good to take photo under this kind of lighting, I would prefer sitting outside but all tables were occupied. Anyway no problem, we sat down and quickly made order. 

What we ordered was the traditional Chinese black sesame sweet soup together with peanut sweet soup, I was quite impressed with the way the soup presented in Zing Zang style, I wonder how they do it as the border between two colours was sharp. These two soups used to be my favourite in my childhood. It recalls me the image of the old Chinese vendor selling "xí mà phủ" (black sesame sweet soup) in my neighbourhood every night. That vendor should has gone for long.  

            My"Hắc Bạch Lưỡng Đạo" - very kungfu name for the sweet soup of sesame and peanut. 

The young waiter is dressed in the old Chinese style and I didn't notice but I was told that all of them address to the customers also in kung fu style like "tiểu nhị" for waiter, "huynh" for male customer and "tỷ tỷ" for female. It's really funny. 

           The waiter in the old Chinese kungfu style dress, we better call him "tiểu nhị" 

Here they serve the desserts in Hong Kong style but with some exceptions as I saw some Thai desserts as well. I've been to Hong Kong several times, but to be honest I don't know much about the desserts there. I was told about the famous egg pudding of the "Five generation desserts" in Tsim Sha Tsui and the glorious durian tofu at Auntie Sweet. I should try it in my next trip to Hong Kong.  

        The name of the above dessert is "Tứ Đại Tài Tử", lit. means "The Best Four Masters" 

Tứ Đại Tài Tử (or The Best Four Masters) is the combination of red bean, jelly, mango and  egg custard served in coconut sauce with ice. It's not bad but I do prefer my another sweet named "Dương Chi Kim Lộ Phục Linh", if without the explanation in pure Vietnamese - I hardly know what is that!

          My "Dương Chi Kim Lộ Phục Linh" - black jelly, mango, pomelo, tapioca pearl in thick mango sauce. 

            While these two young girls were busy with their phones...

           other two young men seemed fascinated by slow-cooked papaya in rock sugar - a popular Chinese sweet.  

           Another angle of "Tứ Đại Tài Tử" with egg custard...looks very tempting! 

The decoration in Chinese style with all red lighting, I was told that during some special promotion, guests can be dressed up as some famous Chinese characters. Hope I will have a chance to dress up as the famous Monkey King from "The Journey to the West". So, I will surely come back to this "World of desserts" very soon, to explore more other sweets.

Tong Pak Fu desserts house used to be popular in Hong Kong but closed down now, so this place surely has no any connection but thanks to last night visit I made some research into the famous poet Tong Pak Fu, and found some of his very nice poems, I'd love to end this sweet review with one of his nice works.

"Ngã ái thu hương" (Ta yêu hương thu - lit. means I love the autumn's scent)

Ngã họa lam giang thủy du du,
Ái vãn đình thượng phong diệp sầu.
Thu nguyệt dung dung chiếu phật tự,
Hương yên diểu diểu nhiễu kinh lâu.

Ta vẽ dòng sông nước xa xa 
Yêu rừng phong úa lúc chiều tà 
Thu nguyệt lung linh soi cổ tự 
Hương thơm kinh các quyện la đà. 

(translated by Bất Giới) 

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Đường Bá Hổ - World of Desserts 

400B Lê Văn Sỹ, P14, Q3
Business hours: 10:00 - 00:00
08 22118787- 0902240210