Roast Goose and Iced Milk Tea @ Tai Hing 太兴

Tai Hing (太兴) is a famous Hong Kong chain of tea cafes or chacanting (茶餐厅) and is well known for their roasts (烧腊) and their iced milk tea （冰镇奶茶). They are priced reasonably and are serve mainly set meals although they do a variety of Cantonese dishes as well. In Shenzhen, the restaurant is usually packed, particularly during weekends when Hongkongers come up to Shenzhen and for reasons best known to themselves, have more Hong Kong food even though they are in Shenzhen. This is something I find hard to understand. It is like going to Italy and popping into Macdonald's for burger! Why would any one want to do that? Shenzhen has plenty of food options that one can sample and you can keep going for years and not need to repeat, unless, of course, the food is so good you want to.

I popped over to the restaurant in the early afternoon to avoid the lunch time crowd. At 2pm, the restaurant was still half full. As I was in a hurry, I opted for a simple meal and ordered their two main specialties - roast goose drumstick with rice and iced milk tea.

The roast goose was of their typically high standards. The skin was roasted to a thin crisp and the meat was juicy and tender underneath. For the less familiar, the small dish beside the plate is sour plum sauce. You dip the meat into the sauce as the meat tends to be rather oily and the sour plum sauce takes away much of the greasiness. My only complaint in this was the miserly portion of sauce and it was hardly enough for the meal. The portions are reasonably sized and those with larger appetites are best advised to order another dish to complement it.



The iced milk tea is the specialty and they have made an innovation in the serving off iced tea. The tea is served with the cup half immersed in a bowl of ice. This preserves the icy cold temperature of the tea. The tea is smooth to drink and has a slight acidic taste that serves as a counterpoint to the sweetness of the condensed milk in the tea. Ordinarily, the acidic taste tends to make the tea taste worse or old, like it has been left standing in the tea leaves for too long. In this case, I think it actually enhances the taste of it. The only downside to this is the price. It costs 15 RMB for that small cup of tea. It is not overly high if one considers the price of Starbucks' coffee in comparison.



Overall, it is worth a visit but keep away during the weekends and go during off peak periods or be prepared to stand in a queue outside the restaurant for a while.

The address:
Tai Hing, Wanxiang Street (right behind MixC Shopping Mall, Luohu, Shenzhen 太兴茶餐厅 深圳罗湖万象街万象城后面
Google Map Directions



More on food