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South China Morning Post
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
How incredible vegetable desserts in Japan changed my mind about sweets
I'm the first person to refuse dessert at the end of a meal and, like many Asians, consider 'not too sweet' the finest compliment I can bestow upon a cake or its brethren. So many found it odd that I spent some time in Hokkaido recently with the main aim of attending a sweets festival. Japan's National Confectionery Exposition has been held since 1911 to promote the country's sweets trade. It occurs once every four years but, owing to the pandemic, was cancelled in 2021 and last held in 2017. The expo returned this year for its 28th edition – called Smile Sweets Hokkaido – and was held in Asahikawa, a small city in Hokkaido, Japan's northern island known for its excellent dairy industry and high-quality fruit and vegetables. More than 1,000 products featured. Let's just say I've never seen such a frenzy for packaged sable biscuits, castella cakes and other sweets as I did that weekend. A Hokkaido milk and corn soft serve ice cream from Smile Sweets Hokkaido, the 28th edition of Japan's National Confectionery Exposition. Photo: Charmaine Mok Queues for the festival's on-site desserts, such as fluffy, cream-filled pancakes and strawberry parfaits, took up to an hour. The only thing I ended up enjoying was a single soft-serve ice cream made with Hokkaido corn, and that was only because most people were hiding from the rain at the time.
South China Morning Post
15-05-2025
- General
- South China Morning Post
Hong Kong's newest obsession isn't viral pastries, it's bland and boring cottage cheese
As a child of the 90s, I distinctly remember cottage cheese being the frumpiest of foods, peddled as a miracle ingredient for those on restrictive Weight Watchers-style diets. High in protein and low in salt and fat, it was often suggested as an accompaniment to that other ghastly anti-gourmet product: rice cakes. Not the deliciously savoury, soy-glazed roasted rice crackers you might buy in a Japanese snack aisle, though – we are talking those squeaky, puffy discs of what could otherwise pass as styrofoam. Yet, in 2025, I found myself a convert to cottage cheese. After decades of eschewing these lumpy curds, I was influenced to go buy a pot by a friend who swore by it – it is worth noting that this friend enjoys actual salt and flavour – after she texted me her latest recipe: 'New cottage cheese creation – balsamic, salt, halved cherry tomatoes, anchovy pieces. Am calling it Pleb Burrata.' Cottage cheese on toast with cherry tomatoes and bacon. Photo: Charmaine Mok She was onto something. Like the soft and creamy Italian cheese, cottage cheese is a gentle base for an array of flavours – I have recently taken to mixing in a bit of fermented, salted green chilli and slathering the mix on hot sourdough, before topping it with tangy cherry tomatoes and a bit of cheeky bacon.
South China Morning Post
27-03-2025
- South China Morning Post
Hong Kong restaurants, put more pictures on menus to win back customers and tourists
There is a lot of anxious hand-wringing these days about how to entice diners back to restaurants in Hong Kong and how to encourage mainland Chinese tourists to explore the cosmopolitan range of eateries in our city. Advertisement Well, one simple idea is just to put more pictures on menus. I know for many chefs and restaurateurs, adding images of dishes to menus is not considered very posh. In fact, some find it cheap and tacky, devaluing the brand and assuming clients are illiterate louts . Fast food customers need visual boards to order, not fine dining's cultured clientele. But in multilingual Hong Kong, maybe that assumption is false. Having been educated overseas, my level of Chinese reading is far from mother-tongue fluency. In a cha chaan teng or local diner , sometimes I have trouble deciphering all the different dishes. Many of the Chinese characters might as well be Greek to me – which I wouldn't mind because I like Greek food. The nostalgia-inducing menu at Luk Yu Tea House – all in Chinese and lacking pictures. Photo: Charmaine Mok In more refined Chinese banquet palaces, the dish names are even more elaborate, sometimes poetic and vague. In such venues, being able to point to a picture and order is a great relief when I am unsure of what a specific dish consists of. And if the image looks good, I am more likely to try it than if I have no idea what is in it. Advertisement
