Jean-Paul Hevin; Island Gourmet
Friends who have a sweet tooth like my own are hard to find.... so when A and I met up I suggested to go for macarons...little did I know we'd end up having a meal's worth of macarons....
First stop was Jeal-Paul Hevin, where we ended up getting a box of six. Because the chocolate was their best-seller we thought we'd have one each, and the other 4 flavours, to share. The amer chocolate macaron shell was not too sweet because of the cocoa in the batter and the thick luscious ganache inbetween was stellar. Two other macarons I also declared my favourites on the spot were the bergamot tea - very apparent....like a cuppa earl grey tea and the raspberry one which had a similar dark chocolate ganache which worked to balance to sweetness of the shell.
The orange-ginger and the caramel were not so good however. The former was neither very gingery or orangey.....was quite weird. The latter was hardly resembling the taste of burnt sugar.... tasted quite plain and not impressive.
The issue with macarons is that that right balance of sweetness is hard to execute, given sugar is a foundation to beating stiff egg whites for the shells. However, JPH impressed my macaron-obsessed friend who had so far only though Island Gourmet lived up to his expectations..... For myself, I was very happy with three out of five flavours which we sampled and I'd definitely go back for those lovely treats....
raspberry, orange-ginger, caramel, bergamot tea and double amer chocolate (dark chocolate)
After a walk we ended up at Island Shangrila's Island Gourmet, where my friend was hoping to find his favourite passionfruit flavour. Sadly today was not such day and we tried the six flavours they had available plus the famous bamboo cake which I had been longing to try.
The flavours they had were strawberry vanilla, mandarin, pistachio, raspberry, hazelnut and caramel. Judging just by appearance, the macarons were different sizes so after being spoilt by JPH's almost identically sized macarons it was quite hard to get past this fact. Upon biting each macaron, they were, just as A had told me, light as air...like a fluffy cloud.... They were slightly too sweet overall, and I felt quite sick after sampling so many (including the previous half-dozen from JPH) in the span of one hour..... but if I am to critique them, the strawberry-vanilla was like play-dough, almost plasticky. The hazelnut, caramel, pistachio and mandarin were very true to their flavours albeit being too sweet and the mandarin had a cube of jelly in the centre of the buttercream which was quite enjoyable.
As for the cake, the "bamboo" was a matcha-opera cake, composed of alternating layers of green tea genoise, green tea buttercream and chocolate ganache.... The layers were excellently thin and the cake not to sweet but on a whole, that strong matcha flavour I yearned for was missing... if you like this type of chocolate-green-tea combination like myself, then I'd recommend the green tea opera from Patisserie Tony Wong's.
strawberry vanilla (white), mandarin, pistachio, raspberry, hazelnut, caramel
bamboo cake
1) Jean-Paul Hevin
Shop 2045, 2/F IFC Mall,
Central, Hong Kong
Food: ♥♥♥-♥♥♥♥
Price: $20 per macaron
2) Island Gourmet
5/F, Island Shangri-La Hotel, 88 Queensway,
Admiralty, Hong Kong
Food: ♥♥♥
Service: ♥♥♥
Price: Average $40 for cakes, $15 for macarons
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