Kowloon Tong Dessert Cafe

When both parties don’t drink, dessert never fails.
Came here on a Sunday around 9pm and this place was packed. Don’t be overwhelmed by the menu as they have plenty of options from sweets to savory. We ended up getting the glutinous rice balls, one with sesame and the other with peanuts. I love anything glutinous and balls are always fun. I’ve had their chicken and waffle years ago and it definitely hits the spot.
Great place for large and small groups especially late night. Good service.

I’m not a super big fan of desserts but nonetheless, I decided to give this place a try. Got there around 930pm and there were a good amount of seats. But when we left around 11pm, there was a big crowd of people inside and outside the restaurant waiting to get served. Good thing I went early but they are open till 2am which is nice.
Café style setup where they have a good mix of appetizers, entrees and drinks. Went with salt and pepper chicken wings, fries, mango sago and mango a go go. The food here is surprisingly good. My favorite was probably the chicken wings. Super juicy and great flavor. As for the dessert I preferred the mango sago over the mango a go go. The milk really helps the dessert and the sago had more flavor than the mango a go go. The only downside was that there wasn’t a lot of mango but overall the sago was good. Not watered down or icy like some places.
The service was unsatisfactory. They never came up to us to take the order as the waiter was standing right next to us but waited for us to call him over. The never checked up on us during the visit. Pretty much served us the food and left. Didn’t offer us water or anything. Overall food doesn’t take long to come out but I would have thought they would have considered checking up on their customers more.
Free waffle ice cream sandwich for order of $ 30 or more when you check in on Unilocal

I used to go to this place often but when I last went, it was a horrible experience. My cousin and I came in with boba that we bought prior before coming to the restaurant. There was no sign saying that no outside food or drink was allowed so we thought it was okay. Then one for the wait staff came to our table and rudely asked us if we could leave or have them take our drinks. After we allowed them to take our drinks, the waiters were absolutely rude to us. They messed the two things we ordered which were so simple: popcorn chicken and waffles ice scream sandwich. The popcorn chicane was cold and small. The waffle ice cream sandwich had the wrong ice cream even after we told the waiter the ice cream we wanted twice. Even after we were finished we had to wait and ask for them to give back our drinks. I DO NOT recommend going here.

I love this place to get my fix for good ol’ Hong Kongnese food. It’s not your standard Chinese food fare but definitely reminiscent of what we had in Hong Kong so come here for a true experience of the different food options and atmosphere. Their Soy Sauce Chicken Wings, Soup Noodles, Pan Fried Noodles with Eggs and Spam, Pork Chop and Pan Fried Rice Noodle with XO Sauce are delicious. They have a HUGE selection of Cantonese desserts ranging from Glutinous Rice Balls filed with things to dessert soups to smoothies with tapioca balls and ice cream sandwiches. Set your expectation on tasty Chinese food you’ve probably never had before as in no Beef Chow Fun, Har Gaw or Hong Style Chow Mein but yes, Pickled Cabbage with Pork Rice Noodles and Pan Fried Udon with Hot Dog. Yes, I said Hot Dog. Mmmm…

I remember my friends and I would always come here in high school during late night hang outs. This was definitely the place to be. It was cash only and back then Smart and Final didn’t care if we parked in their lot. But that was probably 1.5 decades ago. Fast forward to present day there’s a sign outside of Kowloon that prohibit their customers from parking at Smart and Final lol. Back then the free ice cream waffle was at a minimum of $ 25 or more and now it’s $ 30 (probably for the last few years). Still a good deal though. The ice cream is high quality because it’s made with Dreyers ice cream and you can taste the high quality. Everything here is so fun to eat. You can order cold food, hot food, dessert and more. The options are endless. I wonder what happened to the happy guy who used to work here? He was always so happy and offered extraordinary customer service but I haven’t seen him recently. He always made the dining experience pleasant because he was always so enthusiastic. Some of the workers now don’t look very happy lol. Anyways I wish there were more dessert spots like Kowloon. I don’t really know any other ones or I haven’t ventured out far enough. There’s a few along Geary and Clement but I don’t really go there anymore. I like getting the egg and luncheon meat sandwich because it has no crust. It’s luncheon meat and not spam and I like how they are honest about it because I hate places that say spam but put luncheon meat. I also like the ramen noodles plate with egg and luncheon meat. My picky husband likes coming here too so that’s definitely a plus. Their hot tea stays hot for hella long because of the cup they used. They only have two high chairs for kids. There’s mirrors on the wall and a TV. Bathroom is okay. Not hella clean but not hella dirty either. No toilet seat covers though. I hope they decide to invest in that. I feel like we order a lot when we come here but the total is only around $ 30 each time! This is definitely my favorite dessert spot in the Bay Area (until I find better).
I hope the free ice cream waffle with check in is forever because that is another reason why I keep coming back and order hella and bumped this review up to 5 stars.

nice dessert place, good food, but it’s a little bit pricy $$$
Egg puff is a must order.
Mango-​go-​go is good, very authentic just like what I had in Hong Kong before.
Super B jelly is also pretty good if you like fruits（i don’t rmb the name, but it’s something like this. The one with ice cream on)
Curry fish ball is pretty good but $$
The only disappointing thing I had is the mo mo cha cha… it’s not like that! There should be BEANS in the bowl, what I got is a bowl of tapioca with a little bit blended red bean :(
But good place for dessert and hang out with friends thou

The mixed fruit tasted OK.
When the check comes, they put a lot of unordered orders into our check.
So, be careful out there people!

Boo! We had the sago with coconut milk but it was watered down so much there was no flavor at all. Tofu was crispy but the amount of sauce was enough for just a few bites.
We had high hopes for this place but were sadly disappointed. I’d stick to the ice cream and waffles… things they can’t cut corners on.

How is this place so popular? The world may never know.
I came here with friends on Thanksgiving Day trying to get some food after Black Thursday shopping.
We ordered a lot of food and regretted all of it except the fried chicken wings.
Here’s what we ordered:
Spaghetti with chicken steak and curry — $ 9.50 for a mouthful of angel hair and a flat fried chicken breast
Egg puff — expensive and overheated, it was way too brown
Hot HK Milk tea — nothing special, small cup
Salt+Pepper chicken wings — $ 5 for 6 of the world’s smallest wings
Curry fish balls — $ 4 for 6 balls, you could get 2−3times more in Chinatown
Free waffle ice cream — if it wasn’t free, there was no way I would get this
Regular fried chicken wings and fries — Big and juicy, the only good thing of the night
Black seasame paste — watered down like crazy, came with combo meal for extra $ 2
The only reason I’m giving this a 2 stars is because they take card, was open on thanksgiving day, and service wasn’t terrible, but the food doesn’t make up for any of it.

My brother and i came here after the zoo. We were thinking to get the free check in ice cream waffle sandwich with other dessert when we saw the free ice cream waffle in Unilocal app. But we didnt realize that we had to spend about $ 30 to get it. We got 4 items but it wasnt enough anyways. We came 10 minutes after it was open. People started rolling in after 30 minutes. While we were waiting for our dessert, my brother and i heard sneezing and look at each other and wasnt sure what to do. It was disgusting to hear it from the kitchen area but Couldnt do nothing about it since we already order it. and wasnt sure if anyone else heard it before it got a little crowded. Lost a star after hearing the sneeze. I would give them 3 stars if i didnt hear it
Service was okay. Kinda slow to bring out the dessert after ordering
Here are the desserts that we got:
Super mango go go
Salt and pepper chicken wings
Egg puffs
Mixed fruit sago
Some were average while others were good. The price are reasonable

After visiting Schubert’s bakery, we drove past Kowloon Tong Dessert Café which piqued my parents’ interests as they’re pretty serious about their Hong Kong desserts. We came back at night with the intention to just eat a small snack, but we ended up eating dinner and dessert.
There’s a ton of street parking if you go during the night. We avoided the late night crowd when we got here around 8 on a Friday night. Pretty soon there was a long list of people waiting for seats at the café. A lot of young adults/​teenagers seem to frequent this place, buying desserts and chatting with each other, so I’d recommend coming a little earlier to avoid the crowd.
The menu is extensive. There are so many different dessert items that it took us quite awhile before we figured out what to order. From noodles to sago to milkshakes, they have pretty much all the essential Hong Kong desserts you can think of.
Dessert Items:
Mixed Fruit Sago w/​Condensed Milk: I just wanted to get a dessert item, and thought this sounded fairly good. It was underwhelming and definitely not what I was expecting. I think I could probably throw this concoction together at home. There were various fruits on top of the condensed milk, but nothing special. The condensed milk was sweet and the sago was chewy enough, but it pretty much tasted like a typical dessert you’d get at the end of a meal at a Chinese restaurant. I would not order this again.
Black Sesame Dessert: This was part of the daily special — I thought it tasted okay. It had a strong sesame flavor, which is preferred, but this dessert isn’t a favorite of mine, so I can’t really give a fair review. My parents thought it tasted pretty good, although I think they’ve had better from Première Dessert back in LA.
Egg Waffles: Our waffles were a little burnt, so they came out crispy rather than soft. I actually prefer crispy, but the batter had no taste to it, so it was kind of like eating crispy crackers. The inside was pretty soft, but without the sweetness that it needs, it wasn’t too good.
Complimentary Ice Cream Waffles: If you spend over $ 30, they give you a free ice cream waffle dish, which my mom was set on trying. And I’m glad we did because this was probably the best thing I had here! They serve real Dreyer’s ice cream, so they placed a thick scoop of vanilla ice cream in between two crispy waffles. It came out well. Because the batter is not sweet (probably the same batter as the Egg Waffle batter), the ice cream from the center really gives the entire bite the sweetness that I craved. The crispiness of the waffles and the softness of the ice cream really worked for me.
Horlick Drink: This came with the daily special as well. The drink was okay. My parents really like the drink because it reminds them of their childhood days. There was good flavor, but I’m not a fan.
Savory Dishes:
Curry Fish Balls: There were 8 fish balls altogether. While the fish balls weren’t too special — they tasted as if they were frozen beforehand — the curry did taste really good. It wasn’t too spicy, but had a good earthy flavor to it that made me want to add rice to it. Not too bad.
Imitation Shark Fin Soup: $ 4.25 It was decent, but definitely had better in HK. Even HK’s 7/11’s have better tasting (and cheaper) imitation shark fin soup! I thought this one tasted too salty. There was a decent amount of ingredients inside, but the saltiness of the soup overpowered everything.
Soya Chicken Wings with Vermicelli: $ 6.50 I thought this was a pretty decent dish considering the price. There were three chicken wings with a pretty big bowl of vermicelli. It was enough to fill my sister and me up. The dish took around 15 minutes to cook, and it was well worth the time because the chicken wings had good flavor that really soaked through beyond the skin of the chicken. The soup base was not too heavy and was quite light, which was nice.
Chicken and Pork daily special: This was $ 9.50 plus an additional $ 1.95. I thought the price was a little expensive considering the tiny pieces of chicken and pork that came with the dish. You’re able to pick your choice of sauce, rice or spaghetti, one hot drink, and a dessert (additional $ 2). So overall this dish was over $ 13. There was a good amount of rice (which we used to soak up the curry sauce) as well as a small scoop of corn. The chicken and pork were cooked well and the skin had that crispy perfection to it. I just thought they were quite small.
tl;dr — Overall, I thought it was a decent place to have dinner. It’s reminiscent of Hong Kong, but doesn’t really come close to the authenticity of HK’s desserts and food. I would come back again for the ice cream waffle! There are actually a few other HK dessert stores within a few blocks of this one, but this was the most crowded.

Whatever you do: DON’T get the curry fish balls. It was a huge rip off. We got 8 small, clearly store bought, reheated balls for $ 4.
We also ordered the salt and hot pepper chicken wings (fair), egg puffs (fair), mango go-​go which is mango with sago tapioca and grapefruit (small but good), and the French toast (poor). The French toast didn’t have enough egg on it, so it lacked flavor. It wasn’t crunchy enough, and the middle of the toast just tasted like semi stale bread. Even after we drenched it with butter and maple syrup it was still flavorless.
Overall, nothing was really worth it except the mango go-​go (even though most dishes were less than $ 6). But I guess I shouldn’t expect to get tasty non-​dessert items at a dessert café. What a shame…

I had a really fun time here. We came after dinner to grab desserts. They have a variety of different asian desserts, but they have regular food too. It smelled pretty awesome, so I want to try to come back another day for regular food.
I Got the mango tapioca dish. It was good! And my friend got a dessert in a shape of a ying yang.
It gets packed at night because everyone is coming here for desserts. Gets a little loud, but great vibe. Very cool place to hang out with friends.

I’m from SoCal and unfortunately, we didn’t have good authentic Hong Kong small snacks and dessert. I was craving for late night tea and found this amazing place. We ordered their salt and pepper chicken wings, grass jelly fruit ice cream dessert, white egg flan, egg puffs, and can’t forget the Hong Kong style tea. The food and vibe was on point! Definitely made me remanence my Hong Kong visit.
Highly recommended!!! =9

Don’t come here expecting desserts to be on par with the dessert cafes you find in HK or Taiwan, but come with the expectation that this is the only one with the same authentic feel around the area. What I mean is that the service is mediocre, the décor is boring /​old and there’s always a Cantonese television running. All epitomes of classic HK diners.
I like this place because it makes me really nostalgic of all the HK diners I’ve been to, and this place is always crowded whenever I come. I haven’t tried the food, but I really enjoy their mango sago and shaved ice with mango, grass jelly and mango ice-​cream. I haven’t had any of their non-​mango desserts because their most consistent dessert seems to be their mango, so I would advise you to get that. I’d like to try their food one day, but I have pretty low expectations to be honest.
4 stars because I thoroughly enjoyed the mango desserts I’ve gotten here, so the star rating speaks to only that.

Cheap, delicious, and authentic.
I highly recommend the soy sauce chicken wings, egg puffs, and mango sago.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get to try the Tofu Fa because they ran out– but I’ll be back for that. (;
Service: prompt, short, and curt service. Its like any typical small HK café.
A note– I’ve heard from friends that sometimes the fried food can be inconsistent, the fried tofu was good some days and bad others. Be wary.

I’m giving this a 5 stars for being a family stop. When I grew up in SF, there were so many more places my parents could take us to. I’m grateful that my parents didn’t lock us up in the house. There were arcades and even the restaurants had machines of some sort to keep us occupied. When we venture out to the South Bay there are still malls for families. Now, the closest thing you’re going to get to that is Stownstown or one of the Science Halls. Our desperate search for the description «kid-​friendly» only shows how far the community has veered away from a culture where families belong. We have been taking our son here since he was 2, and people don’t stare at him like they want to critique our child rearing skills. Anyway, this place is open late and the desserts are terrific. The wait staff are always phenomenal and they are always patient when explaining the menu choices. My husband and son only eat chocolate and the other dessert bars do not serve chocolate. I’m a mango pudding fanatic, so it works out great for all of us. Since we always come here after swimming, we order the noodles or fried chicken to share.
Sorry folks! My chocolate waffle pic didn’t do that tasty bite any justice. I was slurping down my Super Mango Pudding.

this place is good, but it’s never my first choice. I much prefer 100% and creations over this place, simply based on the desserts that they offer.
Kowloon has more tradition desserts, including tortoise shell jelly and stewed birds nest, and a smaller variety for sagos. The service was good. Our server came by and helped us with the many questions that we had. A note is that the menu isn’t very descriptive at all. So I had no idea the difference a mango madness and a mango go-​go.
I ended up ordering something warm, tofu fa with brown sugar. I’m VERY happy that they didn’t mix it together because it was WAY too much brown sugar. I scooped out more than half and it was still too sweet. Even though it was too sweet, I still enjoyed the texture of the tofu fa. Note: they only carry this dessert on certain days of the week (I believe only the weekends).
If my friends were to suggest to come here, I wouldn’t oppose and I would eat and enjoy; but unfortunately, based on my tastebuds and dessert preferences, it would not be my main choice for dessert cafes.

Yesss I’ve been here twice in the past few days and I’m loving this place. I first discovered this place as an Asian dessert café and everything looked super yummy so I knew that I needed to give it a try. My friend and I came on a Friday night and it was pretty packed actually. I got the Mango sago and he got a brown sugar doufuhua which apparently is quite hard to find – well, good doufuhua is at least.
Mango sago was originally not sweet enough for me, but one I actually started to mix it, it started to taste a lot better. I’ve never had doufuhua before so this was a great introduction to it. The doufu itself was great consistency but the brown sugar was a little too strong and made the dish a little more difficult to have.
Anyways, as we were there though, I realized that they have a ton of good savory dishes too! Such a good typical HK style café.
I got the instant noodles with pickled cabbage and sliced pork which was quite good. I mean at the end of the day, it’s as good as instant ramen can actually be, but it was very HK and standard and I’m a fan. I also got the egg puffs which were better in consistency but I like the flavors of Genki’s egg puffs a bit more. Anyways they have a lot of other noodle based dishes, rice dishes, other desserts, ice cream desserts, etc. They have just about everything.
We also lucked out – I came for lunch around 3pm on Sunday and they open right at 3pm. Normally they’re open at 5pm! BUT this place is open until 1am generally on weekdays and 2am on fri/​sat evening which is amazing. Would definitely frequent this place a bit more if I didn’t live so far!
tldr; awesome HK style café with great desserts – not sure why the reviews are so low, probably because all Chinese restaurants get screwed on service but I think the quality of the food is pretty neat

Nothing out of the norm in terms of an Asian dessert place. The service is pretty quick and the waiters are friendly. They immediately provided me and my friend cups of hot tea. It wasn’t super packed on a Thursday evening (and parking around the area was surprisingly easy [maybe we got lucky]).
I ordered the waffle ice cream sandwiches. They weren’t bad. But I felt the waffle was a bit overcooked and too stiff for my liking. Plus I didn’t get as much ice cream as shown in other Unilocaler’s pics :(… Same thing goes for the waffles made in my friend’s order. In terms of the egg puffs they weren’t exactly baked together. The top and bottom slide off easily from one another which isn’t a big deal but it didn’t seem made properly.
Maybe I should have just went with the usual and got sago. I’ll probably come back if I’m in the area but wouldn’t go out of my way to come here.

Meine Schwiegermutter war letztes Wochenende zu Besuch. Sie kommt ursprünglich aus Hong Kong und ist daher immer auf der Suche nach Restaurants, die sie an ihre Heimat erinnern. Als wir am Soontagabend in der Richmond Chinatown unterwegs waren, fiel ihr der Name dieses Ladens ins Auge: Kowloon Tong Dessert Café: Kowloon ist ein Stadtteil von Hong Kong und zwar der nicht-​touristische Teil der Stadt! Wie wir ja alle von Sissi gelernt haben, sollte man seine Schwiegermama immer gut bei Laune halten und so sind wir natürlich gleich hier eingekehrt!
Das Kowloon Café ist ein typisches Hong-​Kong-​Style-​Café, wo viele pikante Snacks angeboten werden (z.B. frittierter Tintenfish), aber natürlich auch Bubble-​Teas oder traditionelle Nachspeisen. Und genau wegen dieser traditionellen Desserts sind wir hier hingekommen. Man bemerke: im Gegensatz zu den deutschen, werden asiatische Nachspeisen oft warm serviert. So wie, zum Beispiel Sesam-​Mandel-​Suppe oder Tarot-​Tapioca-​Pudding. Das Mango-​Sago war auch sehr lecker, vor allem weil es mit frischen Mangos gemacht wurde. (Das Mango Sago wird kalt serviert.) Für die etwas weniger experimentierfreudigen Besucher gibt’s oder aber auch etwas: Grüner-​Tee-​Waffel-​Sandwiches!
Meiner Meinung nach ist’s auf jeden Fall einen Besuch wert!