[Taiwan] Desserts @ Hankyu Department Store

Location Review:
Hankyu Department Store (統一阪急百貨)
台北市忠孝東路五段8號
ZhongXiao E. Road, Sec 5, No 8
Taipei City, Taiwan





It was pouring outside the day that my friends and I decided to walk around the Tapei 101 area in Taipei City. Go figure. Luckily we found our way inside Hankyu Department Store to shelter ourselves from the rain a bit. On the basement floor of the department store was actually a huge food area. They have food court style food, as well as desserts being sold at counters. It was like a department store for desserts. JACKPOT.

Basement floor of Hankyu 

It was really pretty inside, with clean yet elegant decor. It's actually much bigger than this picture shows, because it's only one side of it.

Mydori dessert counter

We were first drawn to the Mydori counter by the jars of sponge cake samples, and decided to go for a taste. I tried the Orange flavoured and it was simply delightful. Very airy and spongey, possibly the softest cake I've ever had. They also serve other things like cookies and waffles with ice cream here.

While we were sampling the cake, a magnificent sign caught our eye:

....Green tea egg tarts! If you buy 5, you get 1 free too.

A display case filled with green tea and eggy goodness.

Green Tea Egg Tart 

This was such a good concept. I never would've thought to combine green tea into an egg tart! Unfortunately, the green tea wasn't strong enough, so it didn't fall far from just having a regular egg tart.  It was a decent egg tart, but just didn't have the kick I would expect it to have.

Mr. Donut Counter

I was so excited when I saw a Mr. Donut here, because I've been wanting to try it my whole stay in Taiwan. Despite being founded in the United States, it's main market is still in Asia. Most of the locations in U.S.A were converted to Dunkin' Donuts after Mr. Donut was purchased by the parent parent company of Dunkin' Donuts.

Mr. Donut display case

Honestly felt like a kid in a candy store. I think my eyes lit up by all the colourful and creatively decorated donuts.

Double chocolate Donut (35NT or $1 CAD)

After window browsing for about 10 mins, I finally settled on this double chocolate donut. I like chocolate, what can I say! To my disappointment, it fell short of expectations. I really wish it didn't, but it's probably because the donuts here are not how we are used to in Canada. It's definitely not as sweet (the chocolate coating on top did absolutely nothing for me), and has a chewy texture that closely resembles eating bread. I'm so accustomed to the sweet cakey type of donuts, but I think this is how its preferred in Asia.

"Touched" cake counter 

Now on to the best type of dessert...cakes! My friend @jing116 was actually the first one to spot the pretty cakes from the Touched cake counter, and I'm so glad she did. Best thing we tried all afternoon ended up being from here.

"Touched" display case 

They have individual cake slices for sale, and also a whole cake if you need a little extra pick me up for the day.

Strawberries and Cream cake (60NT or $2 CAD)

I hope your mouth is drooling looking at this cake, because it was so heavenly delicious! I actually wouldn't even call this cake, because the only thing it shares with cake is the shape of it. The "cake" layers were actually more like thin crepe pastry. The strawberry whipped cream was chilled and almost resembled ice cream. So creamy and refreshing with a fragrant strawberry flavour.

Look at all those layers!  From this angle you can see better how thin each individually actually is. But when stacked on top of each other separated with a layers of cream and strawberries, the resulting effect was a thick dense cake that was still light at the same time. Does that make sense? Probably not, but unbelievably delicious! I could eat a whole cake.

Needless to say, after a brisk stroll through this floor of Hankyu mall, we were all sweet-tooth satisfied. Would definitely come back on an empty stomach to try all the other food counters that I never got a chance to try!