Exclusive Sneak Peek: Joy Luck Teahouse‘s HK Egg Tarts, Milk Tea & Bolo Buns

The shop offers under one roof three of HK’s old-school F&B brands, all said to be beloved by the celebs. There are egg tarts from Kowloon City bakery Hoover Cake Shop, bolo buns and nai cha from Sheung Wan’s Kam Kee Cafe and curried Teochew-style fishballs from stalwart Tak Hing Fishball Company. Joy Luck’s Ion stall location is also opposite another upcoming famous HK brand, Hang Heung, which is slated to serve its famous wife cakes to Singaporeans in another few weeks.

The bing sutt (Hong Kong’s traditional teahouses serving Asian-Western fare) is conceptualised by former TVB producer Robert Chua, 74. The Singapore-born entertainment veteran moved to Hong Kong in the ’60s, where he created the popular long-running TVB variety show Enjoy Yourself Tonight (欢乐今宵), which inspired Joy Luck Teahouse’s Chinese name (欢乐冰室). Other than this bing sutt, Robert also previously brought in other famous HK chain eateries like Tim Ho Wan and Kam’s Roast.

8days.sg had an exclusive preview of Joy Luck Teahouse’s snacks ahead of its opening this weekend, and below is what you can expect.

The stall’s look is modern, dominated by display counters in bright, punchy colours that grimy, faded cha chaan teng joints in HK could never imagine. There’s also an industrial oven to bake the bolo buns and egg tarts on-site, though the shiny metal beast dramatically broke down before our visit and we almost couldn’t try the bakes (but more on that later). The food is made according to Hoover, Kam Kee and Tak Hing’s recipes, and the local staff here were flown to Hong Kong for training at the OG shops.

We previously reported that Robert had only planned to offer HK’s “Big Three” — egg tarts, bolo buns and milk tea. But he decided to add Tak Hing’s crowd-pleasing fishballs, as he says he had to be, ahem, “on the ball”. He was impressed by the brand’s “very nice” fishballs, which he says are denser than the bouncy Singaporean version as they’re made with “yellowtail fish paste and very little flour”. Robert adds, “I heard Chow Yun-fat likes these fishballs too.” The orbs are drenched in a spicy curry sauce, like what you’d get from a gritty roadside stall in Hong Kong.

Next month, Robert is opening a second dine-in Joy Luck Teahouse outlet at Bugis Junction. It will have “a few” seats and a new HK-style savoury Chee Cheong Fun, which he only coyly describes as being from “the supplier to the famous HK brands”. But meanwhile, the Ion Orchard outlet is running an opening promotion with 10 percent off all menu items. Senior citizens aged 60 and above can also enjoy 50 percent off their HK Milk Tea and Eight Treasures Tea orders indefinitely.

Hoover’s egg tarts are served in two styles, with your choice of a shortcrust base or Chinese-style puff pastry base. Make sure to save stomach space for these golden babies, ’cos they’re delicious. We were bracing ourselves to get a dud batch as the shop’s rogue oven unexpectedly went on strike during our visit, but the staff must have somehow coaxed it to work (let’s hope it’s just pre-opening hiccups).

Out of the two egg tart bases, we prefer the puff pastry version, even though we usually stick to shortcrust egg tarts. The wispy, buttery flakes crunch dreamily to the bite as they cradle a glob of rich, smooth egg custard. Now, the custard filling isn’t scorched like traditional Portuguese egg tarts (Pastéis de Nata), but it still has a wee hint of caramelised sugar. The custard for the shortcrust tart is just as good, though the base for our tart is a tad overbaked and not buttery enough. The egg tarts are made in batches of 190 pieces every half an hour at the shop.

Contrary to its name, no pineapples were harmed in the making of this bun. Its baked crackly crust, made with eggs, flour, lard and sugar, just resembles a pineapple. It’s such an iconic snack, the HK government listed it as a “living cultural heritage” item. We haven’t tried Kam Kee’s original bolo bun in HK, but the local version made here is pretty tasty, with a sweet, shatteringly crispy golden shell that collapses onto soft, fluffy bread. You can get a plain Original Pineapple Bun ($2), but we prefer a bun with filling. Like the butter bolo bun stuffed with a thick pat of butter that slowly melts into the pillowy centre. Not as shiok: the Luncheon Meat ($2.80) bun with an overpoweringly salty slice of canned meat.

Instead of the typical disposable bowl, Joy Luck serves this well-loved street snack in a white paper cup with skewers (besides cutlery, the shop’s takeaway packaging is all paper). We’ve never really fancied the curry fishballs in HK languishing in a murky pot of curry, and the plain appearance of this cup with just a few bigger-than-average pockmarked fishballs didn’t endear them to us either. We also didn’t become a HK curry fishball convert after tasting ’em — the fish paste-heavy recipe gives the orbs more bite, and the curry is respectably lemak and feisty, but it’s not for folks who like their fishballs smooth and bouncy.

Brewing a good cup of HK-style nai cha is a complex process which involves a few types of Ceylon tea dust and a liberal dash of evaporated milk. Unlike the local teh si, nai cha is stronger, velvety and occasionally floral. We doubt Dicky Cheung’s favourite Kam Kee drink is brewed by a puristic teamaster here — our cuppa of broken orange pekoe-grade Sri Lankan black tea with Dutch evaporated milk is overly tannic, though it tapers off to a consolatory floral finish.

To modernise traditional bing sutt fare, Robert also offers newfangled concoctions like milk tea with beautifying marine collagen (add $1). The collagen is flavourless and doesn’t alter the tea’s taste, but after gorging on egg tarts and bolo buns, banking on this is like repairing a dam leak with duct tape. There’s also a nai cha bubble tea pick called Pearl of the Orient, which we previously tasted during the Circuit Breaker and liked, but sadly had undercooked pearls when we tried it again for this review.

It’s not trendy like bubble tea, but this hot cup of 8 Treasures Tea nourishes our soul. Eight types of medicinal ingredients like jujubes, tangerine peel, goji berries and chrysanthemum float in the delicate, clean brew sweetened simply with rock sugar. But we’re happy to indulge in the unabashedly ‘boomer’ nosh here — what we also appreciate about Joy Luck Teahouse is that it brings a slice of old-world Hong Kong charm right to our doorstep, during a time when the furthest we could travel to is Tuas.

#B4-61 Ion Orchard, 2 Orchard Turn, S238801. Open daily 9am-10pm. www.facebook.com/joyluck.teahouse.

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PHOTOS: YIP JIEYING