Chinatown: Golden Gate Dessert House

I'm quite backed up on entries and I should really do some of them first before this one, but... dessert house! A place dedicated to dessert! Writing about it straight away is a no-brainer for me.

Where?

Chinatown London, 110 Shaftsbury Avenue. Nearest tube station is Leicester Square.

What?

My friend Vicky was visiting from Germany, so we hit Chinatown this evening and had dinner at Longji (entry soon), and then came here for dessert. Cake. Heaven. Not just cake- Chinese desserts, bubble teas, snow ice, ice cream cakes...  it was so difficult to choose what to have.

So I chose two. (The third belonged to my friend Vicky.)

Good thing I hadn't eaten much for the rest of the day, beforehand.

Vicky (eventually) chose the white one, a yoghurt cake:

Whilst I (also eventually) settled for a pandan layer cake:

... And a little taro mousse cake:

Because purple food is awesome.

They were all delicious- the sponge was like eating sweet and fluffy clouds, the pandan jelly was delicately flavoured and not too sweet, and the taro mousse was gorgeous. It was mostly mousse, but had a thin layer of white sponge buried underneath.

After a bit of digging I put the camera away to enjoy the cake.

They also do a few savoury things, like toasts and sandwiches, in case you're in a group of people and not everyone fancies something sweet- but you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who isn't at least a little bit tempted by Golden Gate's rainbow array of cake!

You can also buy large, beautifully decorated celebration cakes, which you can see displayed at the front window:

I think this place is affiliated with Golden Gate Cake Shop on 13 Macclesfield Street (also in Chinatown)- not just because of the shared name of Golden Gate, but also because they seem to sell the same celebration cakes. The Cake Shop's a good place to get buns, but that'll be another entry one day, no doubt.

I used to be a bit scared of visiting the Dessert House- I've known about it for some time, but there was a review a few years ago about the staff being so rude they were borderline mean, so I always bottled out of trying it. I'm pleased to say the ladies there were lovely.

So. If you, like me, love dessert, and happen to be around here, try the Golden Gate Dessert House- just be prepared to spend some time choosing which beautiful confection you want!

Vicky and I got a little bit hyper on sugar, read this entry on my other blog for a short story.