As one of the handful of traditional Chinese bakeries remaining in Hong Kong, Ki Tsui Cake Shop doesn’t just survive but succeeds by loyally treating the people with their good old flavours for more than 30 years.

The shop is almost hidden by the tacky teen fashion in the area and street stalls on Fa Yuen Street, Mong Kok. But once you get close to it, you will be attracted by the crowd outside the shop, the buzzing tungsten lightbulbs, and, of course, the aroma of the pastries.

Since opening in 1984, the bakery has been focusing on only traditional Chinese pastries such as wife cakes (老婆餅), Gai Jai Beng (雞仔餅) “chicken biscuits”, walnut cookies, and so on. Even though the business had been taken over by William Cheung, the second generation of the owner’s family, everything continues to stick to its old ways- traditional Chinese pastries made of only flour, sugar, lard, and oil, by hand.

Everything they make is without a doubt great. So just point at whatever connects with your instinct. For more complex flavour, Gai Jai Beng, a.k.a “chicken biscuits” with no chicken are a perfect little nibble of savoury and chewy bread.

The shop has no intention at all to bake up gimmicky new creations nor to scale up since William knows the tradition and the quality of the products are the keys to its success. “The process is part of the pastry,” he says. “You know this is made by hand because it’s crooked. You can see the filling peeking through the walls. It gives us a sense of humanness.”

“If it’s not broken, why to fix it?” he says.

He’s proven right- Last year, he and the shop were featured in Restaurants on the Edge on Netflix as a successful example.