Hong Kong's Expo-worthy, salted chocolate cookies

Cheekay Chow, proprietor of Phoebe's Designer Bakery, has caught the attention of the World Trade Centre Association and will take part in the Shanghai Expo. Starting June 9, cookies from the bakery will be on sale at the WTCA Pavilion as a Hong Kong representative of a selection of young entrepreneurs in the region. Mingpao Daily speculates that such a high-profile promotion of Chow's cookies might have something to do with the fact that the baker is politician Selina Chow's daughter. But that doesn't take away from the fact that the cookies are yummy.

Chow has made her cookies stand out in a sea of, well, 'cookie-cutter' sweet treats, and she's doing it by focusing on the most basic aspect of the cookie business: flavor.

"If someone is already doing it, then it is meaningless for me to do it as well," said Chow to Mingpao Daily. She's talking about cookie flavors and how she doesn't want to repeat what is already on the market in Hong Kong. Instead, she's looking for the off-beat.

Rather than defaulting to a green tea flavor, practically ubiquitious in Asian confectionary, Chow has made an iron buddha tea biscuit; instead of sticking to tried-and-true macadamia, Chow opted for hazelnuts.

But it's her chocolate cookies that stand out -- they're slightly salty. Just as some people like to salt their watermelon or mix their papayas and mangoes with chili and soysauce, a bit of salt in a chocolate cookie adds a metaphorical fifth dimension to really make the flavors pop. They remind us of sweet-and-salty street food such as meat-stuffed gai daan tsai and other impossible Hong Kong snacks.

The organic cookies, baked daily, are now available at CitySuper and at Phoebe's Designer Bakery.