#004, caffe pascucci, 130110

company: C
conversation: The hospitality industry, work, the future and university life.

After a couple of hours of shopping and walking around, a nice caffeinated beverage was in store for C and I. Not having any post-its of the Mong Kok area at the time, I remembered a cafe at the top of a shopping mall that was on my list. Exploring in: 3... 2... 1...

We reached the top floor of the Langham shopping mall after taking two very long and high escalators, there was a high glass ceiling allowing sufficient natural light, unnaturally white chairs and sofas (they seemed very rigid?) dotted with colourful cushions decorating the L shaped sofa.

The first thing I noticed was that it was empty, not always a good sign. Giving them the benefit of the doubt with it being a weekday and as it was at the very top of the mall. We walked up to the cashier and were faced with a large selection of drinks, the largest I've seen so far.

Whilst looking at the vast selection, we had many questions regarding the names of the drinks as well as the components within them. All were answered by the helpful barista to our surprise as we were mumbling to ourselves the entire time. After finally making our decision, we took a seat in a little corner of the cafe. The seating was comfortable, if a bit "showy" (there were thrones in one corner) and the cafe was not enclosed making it seem larger than it actually was (good!). Whilst chatting for a good couple of hours, others began trickling in and by the time we left there were a few more tables filled up.

I had a cappuccino argentino, regular, HKD$32. She had a paspuccio, regular, HKD$32.

My cappuccino argentino (left) consisted of "golden espresso, hot milk, hot foamed milk and dolce de latte sauce". As you can see, presentation is one of their main selling points as almost all drinks have some kind of design or topping on them. Although I would not call this specifically "latte art", it definitely caught my attention, it was aesthetically appealing.

As we sat away from the bar area, I was unable to view the technique of the barista but I did see that their coffee machine was not one of those from Starbucks which do not require tamping (applying pressure to the finely ground coffee beans in the group handle before extraction) or manual frothing of milk, meaning that the consistency of the milk and its foam was all due to the skill of the barista.

With a mixture of the dolce de latte sauce (which apparently does not exist on Google - I found "dulce de leche"), which I have learnt is something along the lines of caramel sauce, the cappuccino required no sugar, although I did sense a slight bitterness in the first sip. I think my sweet tooth was expecting something sweeter, me = n00b.

Unfortunately, I did think the coffee was not hot enough. I understand that it is really hard to keep the temperature to a constant high degree whilst trying not to burn the milk and much consideration must be made to extraneous factors leading to coffee going warm or (gasp) cold. This is a skill I have not mastered yet either. Every time I froth milk at work, I end up shoving it in my colleagues' face asking them to smell it to see if I've burnt it or not (for some reason I don't know what burnt milk smells like when I'm steaming). Burnt milk is just as bad as warm coffee.

I cannot comment on the taste of C's paspuccio (right) mostly because I forgot to ask her but let your eyes do the talking. Her cappuccino consisted of: "gold espresso, pas-ciok, hot milk, hot foamed milk and caramel syrup". Pas-ciok was translated to 朱古力漿 which I then translated back to chocolate syrup. I can only assume that her drink was sweeter and had a hint of chocolate in it.

Caffe Pascucci is named after the Pascucci family (according to its website) after one of them decided to be a manufacturer and a whole list of events occurred to one day become Caffe Pascucci. Although the website states that: "In 1975 Caffè Pascucci gave itself up to espresso coffee, abandoning the food distribution and setting up the project “only top-quality coffee”." (Company Story - Pascucci.com.hk) The store C and I went to had many tea and lunch sets to choose from.

Being on the more expensive scale of coffees I have tried, I can see why people would be willing to pay the price. The atmosphere, although slightly unnatural was comfortable, spacious and relaxing, the presentation of the drinks, the helpfulness of the barista and especially the infinite amount of beverages to choose from all wrapped into one is something not many cafes can achieve.

Even with the vast number of beverages, the names of them as well as the list of ingredients were sometimes incomprehensible. Yes, of course we could always ask the barista, but what would happens if he was busy and not able to answer? What if I didn't read Chinese? When does it all become excessive? I have been writing this post for approximately 2-3 hours in which half the time was spent finding definitions for the many Italian words. Despite the annoyance (have not worked so hard since I went on holiday, phew), I would go back to Caffe Pascucci to try their many other options. Good game, Pascucci, you win.

address: Top floor of the Mong Kok Langham shopping mall, then turn left.
旺角亞皆老街8號朗豪坊12樓1A舖
website: Caffe Pascucci / phone: 3514 4171
thanks to C for her photos, google translate, wikipedia.