Dai Pai Dong in Stanley - 泗益
泗益 is a pretty famous dai pai dong in Stanley. Equipped with just some basic tables and chairs, and dim lighting, it's probably as ghetto as it gets. Not recommended for the super neat freaks or germaphobes!
As usual, I ordered my beloved HK style milk tea. Usually other restaurants don't add the sugar to the milk tea since it varies by the person's taste (you add it yourself), but this one comes with sugar already and the sweetness is just right. This place also serves hot vitasoy in glass bottle! Ahh memories of childhood. I'll want to get that next time.
This place is famous for their Hong Kong style french toast with kaya sauce (咖央西多士), so I ordered one to try. Traditionally, Hong Kong style french toast is filled with peanut butter on the inside and glazed with syrup on the outside. By filling the toast with the kaya sauce (it's a Malaysian coconut jam), the advantage supposedly is that you don't need to dip the toast in syrup because the jam is already sweet enough. Is it healthier? Well the whole thing is fried so I don't think you're saving much calories there.
I must admit that the french toast here is very light and fluffy. There are places that over fries it and all you end up with is a hard crunchy crust and small portion of bread. As you can see, the proportion here is just right. I hear that instead of just dipping the toast in egg, this place whips up the egg white and applies a coating to the outside of the toast before frying it. I actually saw the owner (shown below) whipping up the egg white by hand after I ordered, so it took a while before I got my food.
Umm maybe it's because I'm not used to it, but I really didn't like the kaya sauce. It's too sweet and after taking a bite, my milk tea didn't taste sweet anymore. I think the reason why traditionally peanut butter and syrup works is that the saltiness and the sweetness balances each other out. It's too bad - I really like the texture of the toast here but prefer peanut butter and syrup instead.
They also serve some basic HK style cafe menu items like sandwiches, instant noodles, etc. - it's nothing you can't get anywhere else. On the weekends, there's usually a pretty long line - not sure if it's worth the wait.
Last time we were there, we ate "車仔麺" with milk tea. Never tried the french toast though.
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