Smile Yogurt - The frozen yogurt means to make people smile

This is one of the most mouth-watering dessert shop displays in Hong Kong. With a mission to make people smile, Smile Yogurt totally lives up to it.

Original flavor is the only yogurt flavor served in this store, but I think a single perfect flavor would suffice. The yogurt itself has a moderately firm texture that holds the beautiful swirl well until you finish the whole cup.

Accompanying the yogurt are the wonderful house-made toppings such as vanilla noodles, crumbles, passion fruit banana compotes, chocolate explosive mikados, strawberry meringues, lychee rose sauce, osmanthus jelly...etc. The menu comprises of frozen yogurt cups in different combinations, some popular ones are Banana Split, Vanilla Sky and Pink Lady. Looking at the menu, they are already mouth-watering, taking a spoon you are going to fall head over heels in love.

To make one smile, it takes sincerity and a mind for detail to make sure every frozen yogurt cup served is of perfection. While standing at the bar enjoying my froyo, I observed the froyo-makers and gave my full respect to them as I saw them putting red berry crisps (something considered as sprinkles to be sprinkled on)  one-by-one evenly on the yogurt swirl like decorating a piece of jewelry with gemstones. I appreciate food vendors who could turn something simple into amusements by creativity and a persistence for quality. Keep smiling :)

Smile Yogurt & Dessert Bar
Kowloon City branch - 2382 6669 - G/F No.65, Lion Rock Road Kowloon City, Kowloon
Tsim Sha Tsui K11 Branch - 2138 6210 - Unit G15A, G/F, K11, 18 Hanoi road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon
Causeway Bay Hysan Place Branch - 2811 8321 - Shop 509, 5/F Hysan Place, 500 Hennessy Road,Causeway Bay, Hong Kong 

Party tips:
Dessert cups are available for parties to delight your guests. Their mikado pretzel sticks are also pretty party gifts too!

Have yourself a merry little GREEN Christmas 2012

Continuing the 10 Green Christmas ideas in the last 2 posts, here comes the last 4!! Wooo...I have to admit it's not an easy job to come up with 10 different ideas having had all those research to be done behind...haha okay now we have four more left...here we go!

Green Christmas Idea #7 - Pot plant cupcake - An Eco-awareness powerhouse

Bringing pot plants to a party may be bizarre, how about an edible one? Aww I am sure all the other guests would be thrilled! Having realized the importance of environmental protection and taking action are like the two sides of a coin, once we buy this in as a delightful idea to having green plants around, it should come as natural for us to support green initiatives like tree planting, urban greening, anti-deforestation etc, theoretically. The call-for-action effect would be even strengthened paired with the luring effect of luscious cupcakes mimicking pot plants :)

Pot plant cupcakes by Pantry Bread & Pastries, Causeway Bay

The pot plant cupcakes from Pantry Bread & Pastries look familiar, as I've seen them being featured in TV programs and some other publications. I think these cupcakes are certainly the very type of ready-made (vs custom-made) cupcake that are made to give as gifts. Adorable aren't they!

Click to find out Pantry Bread & Pastries' location.

Other cute pot plant cupcake ideas...cute cute cute!!

Credit: Foodista.com

Credit: Willcookforfriends.com

Green Christmas Idea #8 - Organic farm day

Seeing is believing. Environmental protection knowledge sometimes takes personal experience to be discerned, like hands-on farming, eco tours to the mangroves, wetlands, or even tours to the landfills. Despite the diminished agricultural industry in Hong Kong, there are indeed many organic farms scattered in the New Territories which concern not the amount of produce, but the education!

Most of them are well organized for people of all age to visit, offering activities such as guided tours in organic farms, eco-handcraft workshops, and organic produce picking.

Check out some of the organic farms open for public below:

The HKFYG Organic Farm 香港青年協會有機農莊

Address	:	No. 1 Family Walk, Ho Pui Reservoir, Pat Heung, Yuen Long, N.T.
Tel	:	2838 4808
Website	:	organicfarm.hkfyg.org.hk
Admission	:	$20 / person

Produce Green Foundation 綠田園基金

Address	:	18 Hok Tau Village, Fanling, N.T.
Tel	:	2674 1190
Website	:	http://www.producegreen.org.hk/eng/index_e.htm
Date for visit	:	Mondays to Sundays (opens daily except the first three days of the Lunar New Year)
Time	:	10:00am to 5:00pm
Reservation	:	No need to reserve for groups of 10 people or below and entry fee is paid on arrival. Groups of 11 people or above should make a telephone reservation, fill in enrollment form and send to our farm together with the entry fee.
Admission	:	$10 / person

Lohas Organic Farm 樂活有機農場

Address	:	105 Lot no.100, Cheung Lek Tsuen, Sheung Shui, N.T.
Tel	:	2671 8191
Website	:	http://www.organic.org.hk/
Date for visit	:	Sundays & Public holidays
Time	:	10:30am to 5:00pm
Reservation	:	Required
Admission	:	$20 / person

Zen Organic Farm 有心機

 

  

Address	:	Ping Che, Ta Kwu Ling, N.T. (Near Lei Uk Village)
Tel	:	6692 2671 (Joey Ng)
Website	:	http://www.zeno.com.hk/?page_id=392
Date for visit	:	Tue to Sun (Closed on Monday except public holidays)
Time	:	10 am – 5 pm
Reservation	:	Required
Admission	:	Free

 

Counting down the last two!! I am ready~ are you?

Have yourself a merry little GREEN Christmas 2012 (cont')

As the previous blog post starts to get too long, here continues my next 3 green Christmas ideas - Cheers!

Green Christmas Idea #4 - Re-use, re-wrap and re-create?!

"In Hong Kong, 13,800 tonnes of wastes are disposed of in landfills every day. Every year, around 4 billion dollars are spent on operating the three landfills."- Green Power (2012)

Regardless how much tax money has been used for treating wastes, I am more concern how much longer our landfills could carry on with more and more solid waste dumped into them every day and when the time will come to break ground for a new one...How to save our pitiful landfills? One of the 3 powerful Rs - reuse - is an approach, yea it sounds like a cliché but...we know it works to save the environment, right? Let's get inspired by some Christmas reuse ideas below~

Plastic bottle tree (Credit:InspirationGreen.com)

|| Reuse ideas ||

1) Reuse newspaper, interesting magazines, and other paper products as wrapping paper
2) Reuse old Christmas decorations instead of buying new ones, too boring? Touch up and modify them then - you never know where your creativity would lead you to

3) Create your own decorations with personality - Turn materials like old newspapers, plastic bottles, aluminum cans, paper/ plastic bags, scrap papers...as many as you could name into fun and shiny pieces of art crafts to decorate your home, you wouldn't be able to find any other decor more personalized than this :) Feel free to imagine and have fun as the sky is the only limit.. :)

Ornaments from scrap materials (Credit: eismontdesigns)

Stockings from paper bags! (Credit: blog.rockscissorpaper.com)

Paper wreath (Credit: www.recyclethis.co.uk)

Light bulb snowman (Credit:Waleska Vasquez)

Green Christmas Idea #5 - Reduce - for not having to actualize the "WALL-E" story

Recalling the animated film, WALL-E, a love story between 2 robots started in the trash filled planet earth...an abandoned planet by human. It's an inspirational, educational story but pretty sad tho...I don't know if kids understand why human would have to live in the outer-space while in hope that the earth would become habitable again. Think about your day, from the beginning to the end, how much do you consume and dispose, how much waste in within could possibly be avoided?

WALL-E in the future earth looking up at the stars (Credit: wallsfree.com)

|| Facts ||

What you use	What it does to the environment
ALUMINUM FOIL	A large amount of electricity is used in manufacturing foil
BANANA AND ORANGE PEELS	As food decomposes in a landfill it generates harmful greenhouse gases such as methane
JUICE BOXES	Inorganic waste may take hundreds of year to decompose, or may not decompose at all
PAPER BAGS AND NAPKINS	It is estimated that 17 trees are cut down for every ton of non-recycled paper
STYROFOAM	Styrofoam is very difficult to recycle. The best way to protect the environment is to stop using it

Source: global stewards

|| Reduce - Refuse ||

During festivals like Christmas, while we think it's unavoidable to use wrapping papers for gifts, disposable cutleries for parties, or have superfluous desire to buy clothes and presents, we could indeed make light of our stress to the landfill by taking "reduce" in action. Below are some old clichés so boring even to me...but the point is, are we actually putting them in practice?

NO	YES
NO throw-away bags	REUSABLE carrier (cloth bag, lunchbox)
NO plastic wrap, foil or styrofoam	REUSABLE containers
NO single-use cartons or cans	THERMOS for drinks
NO paper napkins	CLOTH NAPKIN to wash and re-use
NO plastic forks and spoons	SILVERWARE to wash and re-use

Source: global stewards

Green Christmas Idea #6 - Less guilt consuming wines - Recycle the bottles! 
Wine is a crucial element to a enliven a Christmas dinner, bottle after bottle of wines leaves behind...apart from a tipsy to drunk party are...GLASS BOTTLES!! I feel always feel bad about throwing glass bottles into the trash bin, but where to find a recycling bin in the streets and which bars or restaurants recycle glass bottles? 

Green Glass Green is a local NGO, and an activist in glass recycling initiatives. Their glass-collection campaign has successfully allied with many bars and restaurants in Hong Kong, and they also set up glass collection points to collect glass to be recycled and re-generated into "Eco-Blocks" (glass bricks used for road paving, which also have the ability to remove air pollutants!). 

So check out the bars / restaurants that recycle glass bottles when you plan your night out, and bear in mind the collection points where you could dump your bottles after visiting the 7-Eleven bars ;)  

 

Continuing my last 4 Green Christmas Ideas in the next post :)) Excited Christmas is coming close!