蛋撻與杏仁酥餅

I don’t know the yardstick for good egg tarts and almond cookies, which seem to be the thing that people buy as souvenirs when it comes to local snacks. The girlfriend told me that her parents would go out to Sai Kung to buy almond biscuits. Waaaaah. Well, the tastebuds can discern why some are good or bad, depending on the flour, the consistency, et cetera. But my tastebuds don't care about them. I don’t go out of the way to buy 手信 of biscuits and such to lug home. It's not so much about the logistics, but more of the fact that nobody at home appreciates them. Even if the man loves egg tarts, regardless of which 'best shop' they come from, they taste horrible when they’re cold.

The girlfriend insisted that we eat the egg tarts from this shop in Cheung Chau. It was supposedly the 'second best' shop just directly across the ferry pier. The 'best' shop ran out of egg tarts already. She bought them for her parents (who were in town), but made me eat one. We got them fresh out of the oven. The shop assistants had to dig them out of the moulds before packing them into boxes for us.

The egg tarts were cute and tiny! By most people's standards, I think they weren’t too sweet. I can understand the love for egg tarts. Well, they tasted pretty decent, in the egg-to-flour ratio, and better than what many bakeries offer. Still, the one egg tart was clearly a tad wasted on me. 😉

So the girlfriend's parents went all the way to Sai Kung (西貢) and bought ten boxes of almond cookies (杏仁酥餅). They kept one for me. I was like, hey, keep it for yourselves or someone else who'd appreciate these a little more. But they insisted I have one box. Luckily it was a compact little box that wasn't too heavy. Whewww. I'd have felt really bad if they had to lug around this many boxes.

Apparently the parents love only this version of almond cookies stocked at a little shop called Juice Beauty. They don't quite fancy cookies from anywhere else. They would know. They like Hong Kong almond cookies. I couldn't seem to find a brand except "西貢田園手信: 胚芽專家".

Stared at the box for a bit. Decided to open it up to sample them. Upon first bite, I was quite blown away. WOAH. These cookies are fantastic! Loads of almonds; plenty of crunch They would have sugar, but the sugar content is low enough for me to want to have two pieces at this first tasting. I've never tasted almond cookies done this way. It's really quite delicious.