Wishing Tree

Crazy monkey is absolutely crazy. Its nutella and whipped cream madness. If you are a calorie counter then I don’t recommend this for you. You get two waffles and slices of bananas that are drenched in nutella and topped with whipped cream. Anyone can make this at home, but heck, I’m out so why not just buy it?
Mango green tea with aloe + Green milk tea was average.
One thing I have to mention: There was a woman walking towards my table. She stopped about two steps away and began texting away for a few minutes. It was a little awkward because she was so close to us even though this place was practically empty. Go stand somewhere else woman! The funny part is that she turned out to be our waitress. Who knew? They all dressed is regular clothing. I could not help laughing, because after our dirty dirty stares she turned out to be our waitress. Good service? I think not. She needs to text elsewhere and not out on the floor.

I’ve gone to Half and Half a ton of times but never even noticed this place until Half and Half was closed on Christmas Eve. The employees were very helpful, willing to describe things in detail and answer any questions.
Might order again:
The waffles were light and airy. Much lighter than your typical american waffle. I liked how the crumbly topping was not too sweet.
Durian Dessert with Ice cream — The dessert isn’t much to look at but it is packed with durian flavor and smell. Surprisingly it was too sweet for my taste since I assumed most chinese desserts aren’t this sweet. Eating this will definitely cause complaints among your friends.
Skipping:
The Mango Sago Pomelo dessert — Even though I could see Pomelo’s on the back shelf they were not used in this dessert like they were supposed to be. The ruby red grapefruit they used was very bitter and ruined everything. I love eating this dessert but this was just a disapointment.

i was the only one in there, and there’s no service. They gave me a feeling that they don’t care about my business. Somehow, I only ordered one item, during the 5 – 10 minutes wait, I see two staffs, running all over the place, doing a lot of things, including putting a big jar of peanut butter into the microwave to heat it up. That’s new to me. Oh, yea, what I ordered was HONG KONG STYLE WAFFLE. Yes, HONG KONG STYLE, you have to be very clear on that part.
Wiki quote:
«Hong Kong style waffle, in Hong Kong called a „grid cake“ or „grid biscuits“ (), is a waffle usually made and sold by street hawkers and eaten warm on the street. It is similar to a traditional waffle but larger, round in shape and divided into four quarters. It is usually served as a snack. Butter, peanut butter and sugar are spread on one side of the cooked waffle, and then it is folded into a semicircle to eat. Eggs, sugar and evaporated milk are used in the waffle recipes, giving them a sweet flavor. They are generally soft and not dense. Traditional Hong Kong style waffles are full of the flavor of yolk. Sometimes different flavors, such as chocolate and honey melon, are used in the recipe and create various colors. Another style of Hong Kong waffle is the eggette or gai daan jai (), which have a ball-​shaped pattern.»
my order turned out to be not folded, and was asked if i want fork to eat with. Also, whip cream was placed on top at the center of the circle. Never ever, the traditional HK style waffle has whip cream in it. It’s a kind of street food, people just eat on the street, just as it’s a sweet sandwich, why in the world is it not presented the right way, when this place emphasis on being authentic hong kong style. I didn’t even want to pay for it when I see it. I haven’t felt that appointed for a long time. Also, the price is far too high for such an item, including tax, almost $ 5.
Side note for the price: it cost HK$ 10 to purchase a fine one in HK, which is around $ 1.25. None of the ingredient need to be shipped from HK, everything can be bought here local. Butter, egg, evaporated milk, peanut butter and sugar, none of these would cost one order to be that expensive.
The store is not ready. With just one customer, they faced it as if it’s in war, such a simple dish it took them over 5 minutes. Wishing tree, you need to know about what you are selling, it’s not as simple as what you think it is. You are selling authentic, dig out the authentic part and learn it.
Couple years back, there’s a similar place in San Gabriel on Valley. That place was well known on what they were doing and did it well. They moved out of state that making me carve for HONG KONG STYLE WAFFLE since then.

1. they had great pancake (banana was very good)
2. fishball and etc skewers were fast and yummy
3. they let you bring outside drinks in.
they weren’t amazing but for the most park since it is right by half and half it is worth coming here and sitting around after that place gets super full and stuffy.

The curry fish ball had a «bouncy» texture, which is a good thing for fish balls. I also ordered the fish meat and lettuce soup. It’s pretty foods, but too much pepper. Then I ordered the mango with black jelly and added coconut to it. The server came back 10 minutes later telling me that they sold out of coconut. It’s freaking noon and i’m the only customer. Who did they sell it all to. Everyone was right in that they never have key ingredients in stock. The food’s ok. Nothing to die for. But if you have cravings, don’t come here because they might not have what you need to satisfy your cravings.
What’s strange was when I asked for the check, the server just told me what the amount was. Granted that I did the math in my head, that was unprofessional to just tell me what my total was. When I handed her $ 20, she pulled out her purse to give me the change. Hello?! What happened to using the cash register. This was noon by the way.

Went here last night around 10pm and they almost have nothing to serve. Whatever we’d tried to order, the waitress told us they’d ran out of it. My recommendation for them is: If you have nothing to serve around 10p.m., don’t even bother to open until 2a.m.
Service here is really terrible. The waitress did not inform us when serving the food onto our table and she just simply passed the food between heads.
Conclusion: Will never come back again.

The teas and service here are horrible!
I ordered a hong kong milk tea and it tasted like old tea that had been sitting out doctored with creamer and ice. The honeydew milk tea tasted nothing like honeydew, but rather simple sweet syrup and the milk green tea was also overly sweet.
We didn’t get a chance to try the waffles since they ran out of batter (at 2:00 pm in the afternoon mind you).
Service is spotty and it doesn’t appear they have a good grasp on their customer service and menu yet. Hopefully they’ll improve. They’ll need to in order to stay alive in Monterey Park.

I have to say that, Wishing Tree really gives you the authenticity that no other café brings you around LA, and quite frankly, I still secretly constantly think about stopping by after work sometimes to get some dessert, but the price is expensive for the portion given.
Shark Fin Soup: Just an O.K. I wanted some hot soup since the weather was extremely cold outside that day, but this isn’t something I recommend ordering if you are looking for something authentic and worth the buck.
Curried Fish Balls: Although as delicious as it was, I didn’t that that 5 small fish balls dipped in curry sauce was worth $ 4.00. I know that I cant compare it to the price you pay for it in Hong Kong, but seriously, a normal guy would probably have to order about 3 bowls of these to be actually filled, and that really adds up… for $ 12.00 to be filled, I think someone would rather go get a decent meal.
Durian Sago Dessert: I absolutely love Durian, and LOVED this dessert. I crave it still on a daily basis actually. For you durian lovers out there, please come try this! It will not disappoint! It’s a bowl of cold coconut milk dessert that comes with durian purée and pieces inside, along with sticky rice if you get the one with sticky rice inside. There’s just something so addicting about it that I cant even explain.
I actually really want to come back here and try the other dessert items such as the mango sticky rice, waffles, and the round egg-​cakes, but I would probably stop by a lot more often if the prices weren’t as high for the portion given. I say, either give a little more, or charge a little less.

Terrible. I would rather have waited in line at half and half. We sat down and ordered several things. Time passed. Waitress comes back telling us they’re out of a certain tea flavor and they’re also out of waffle batter and we’d have to wait if we still want our waffle. (Keep in mind this wasn’t at a weird hour, this was primo afternoon tea house hours.) More time passes. Finally our drinks show up and they are disgustingly sweet. We just gave up, paid and left since we didn’t feel like fighting with them and honestly we just kind of felt bad — the way things are going, they’re going to need a lot of luck to stay in business.
I don’t leave many 1 star reviews. but I hope this can serve as a kick in the ass to get the business going. It’s a nice location and they can certainly succeed, and they can even provide competition to Half and Half if they get their act together, but right now they couldn’t compete with a lemonade stand run by a 10 year old.

This place is a BIG FAIL in more ways than one. First off, upon arrival the customers are not greeted and led to a table. During the 1 hour and 15 minutes we were there, every customer that came in seemed confused about whether they were suppose to seat themselves or wait for someone to seat them.
As mentioned by the other reviews, service was painstakingly slow — and honestly bordered on incompetent. It took about 15 minutes for someone to finally come to our table to take our order and an additional 40 minutes…40 MINS to bring out 2 orders of waffles (one of which was burnt and really should not have been served). The slowness was especially baffling because there was only 3 other tables there.
We tried the original HK eggettes and coffee eggettes. For a place that is suppose to specialize in Hong Kong street foods and desserts, these waffles were utterly lacking. You can get a better version at Café Spot or Tasty Garden. Instead of being light and airy, both orders were dense, cake-​like and really didn’t taste like the flavor it purported to be.
Overall, Wishing Tree will make you wish for your time and money back.

WTF wishing tree! I wish I went to Half & Half instead of waiting an hour here for mediocre waffles. I wish I got the drink I ordered instead of the wrong one after waiting 20 minutes.
Only saving grace was the deck of Uno cards. NEVER again.

(Okay, I should really give the place a few times before writing a review, but I can’t help it!)
I went back again because I was determined to try a tea, and to use and abuse their free Wi-​Fi. Unfortunately, only one of those things happened.
I went in and got the last table by the window, with one chair. Sadly to say, the chair was slightly damp near the end, but I didn’t really mind it. (Thank goodness I decided not to wear shorts). The place was decently busy, but service was great. The server was always on top of things, until the very end when orders sort of got slammed.
Since this place specializes in Hong Kong desserts, why not just go with the basic Hong Kong tea? And since I had the munchies, I chose something simple, the egg with tomato sauce rice bowl.
The Hong Kong tea wasn’t something I’m used to from other places, like it was more tea than more sugar. Not that it was a good or bad thing, but it was just tea. I guess I have to try it again to get over my shock factor.
The egg with tomato sauce is what the dish is, egg with tomato sauce and tomatoes. Again, I wanted something simple and they did it right. Tomato was slightly sweet, egg wasn’t overcooked with a hint of brown and the rice was cooked fine. I was actually craving the sweetness from the tomatoes AFTER eating.
I did wanted to try a dessert, but because the Wi-​Fi was acting up, my decision got skewed to «maybe next time». The good thing was that the server and the person behind the counter apologized for the Wi-​Fi acting up, something that not a lot of places would do.
The star drop was more of the quality of the food, just because I felt that they could have put a bit of effort into the rice bowl.
Also, I did find it ironic on how they were aiming to be green-​friendly, yet I was given a to-​go cup and a to-​go dish for my rice bowl. Ouch.

After I keep hearing their radio ads on the chinese radio station, I decided to check this place out. It is located at the old starbucks location in Monterey Park. The place is super small, only 3 tables inside, and a few tables outside — definitely not a place to take a big group of people to chill and hang out. This is more like a to go place.
Since I went here right after dinner, I only got the «pancake». Its a classic hong kong street snack. The batter is poured into the iron, which has little holes, and when finished, the pancake is has little balls of delicious batter popped up. Taste-​wise, the original flavor is pretty good.
However, texture-​wise, it is pretty far off from the real deal in hong kong. It is suppose to be crispy on the outside and soft and fluffy on the inside. Here, the whole thing is just soft. The only ones that were «crispy» were the slightly burnt ones (which is not what it is suppose to be like). Hence, minus one star.
I knocked off another star because it took them forever to make one order, when there was no one else in the place. In Hong Kong, these street vendors can make a lot of orders in the time that it took Wishing Tree to make my one order.
Also, its pretty pricey at $ 4. So this review is more like 2.5 stars.

I came here the other day my two friends for some Hong Kong style foods. We ordered the egg pancakes, the papaya dessert and shark fin soup.
I was 5 minutes late and my friends told me that the waitress have asked them 3 times about ordering the food. I was like… anyways, the foods are okay, but the portion doesn’t match with the price. The egg pancakes was like $ 5? I can’t remember but our shark fin soup was $ 3.95 and papaya dessert was $ 5.95. They were in the little cups.
The waitress was nice but I think she came too fast to pick up our foods. I personally dislike it when we are chatting and the waiter/​waitress would come over to ask us if we are ready with the bill when they are not even closing. I think it will need some improvement on that.
I really love HK foods, and hopefully this place will get better so I can come again. This place is very new so I hope it will take the advices and get better.

Walked into this place with high expectations. Walked out feeling unsatisfied. Ugh. Why did I risk ending my New Year with a place like this?! T_​T
My first impression of this place was pretty good. The aroma of the place was delicious, the scent of cooked waffles drifted throughout the store. Although the store was tiny, but the theme was definitely nice.
Boyfriend and I ordered:
1x Mango Pomelo Sago Dessert — $ 4.85: It came out ²⁄₃ cup full, with no pomelo, and the taste was disappointing. My boyfriend looked so tortured trying to finish it. WASTE OF MONEY DO NOT ORDER! Even the boss of the place thinks it tastes WEIRD. wtf. We over heard him talking to a table full of girls next to us about the taste. FAIL!!! Please spend your free time improving your dessert and stop flirting with those cute girls besides us, OR going outside for a smoke. Thanks.
1X Mango Pomelo Sago Tofu Custard — $ 4.85: it was also ²⁄₃ filled, & there was no sweeeetness to it at all. It tasted like the tofu came from those silky tofu packs in the frozen section of the supermarket. I ate it half way and had to ask the girl to add in condense milk for me. The pomelo basically ruined the dessert even more. It was hella bitter. DO. NOT. ORDER. FOR. YOUR. OWN. GOOD.
1x Mango Sago — $ 3.85: a big W.T.F. was rubbing around on my taste buds when I insert a spoonful of this stuff into my mouth. It was like they poured coconut milk directly out from those coconut milk cans, added some tapioca, and chopped in some mangoes. And that is all. We didn’t even touch this after that one spoonful. BF to-​go it home so he can fix it up so that it’ll be more edible. DO NOT ORDER. also ²⁄₃ filled (mind you, the product appeared REALLY less for what you paid for).
1x Mango Black Sticky Rice — $ 4.85: Finally something that we actually finished all the way! Can’t compare to Phoenix’s but hey, I was so happy that there was something I can actually finish, so I don’t care!!!
1x Hk Styled Original Pancake — $ 4.00: A bit on the pricey side. It tasted okay to me… but the boy said he’s tasted better. I don’t know, this was my first time tasting it: P
Overall, after typing up this review, I feel like a complete idiot for ordering so much. –_​_​_​– heh. Service? They need to be more attentive and they need to hire an extra person. Parking? You will ALWAYS find parking, don’t worry.
Last thought of the night, even vegetarian food has more taste than the desserts here… ]: disappointing. There’s my 2 cents, take it or leave it. Happy New Years!

Any stars given is mainly for the available menu options and rather nice service, albeit from super inept slow workers.
Drinks/​dessert was not good. I ordered a mango sago which they were nice enough to turn into a drink for me. Let me tell u this thing was not sweetened at all. This is coming from a girl who usually hates sweet drinks and will even order drinks with less sugar. The drink was so thick and gunky from the coconut milk it wouldn’t even be good as a dessert. I saved it for the hubby (who isn’t picky like me) and he wouldn’t even take more than a sip. We ended up throwing it out.
I also ordered a single scoop of ice cream for my hubby to try later. For what its worth I could have gone to rite-​aid and got better tasting ice cream for my money. My tiny little scoop was $ 2.65 =\ Don’t get me wrong I’ll easily paid over $ 10 for scoops of good ice cream/​gelato. But this tiny barely one scoop ice cream was not worth my money. I doubt we will return and I’m kicking myself for not going to Half and Half instead.

A new Chinese dessert place! AND it takes credit. AMAZING.
My friend and I stumbled upon the place because we needed to kill some time after dinner. There is a large selection of desserts, including some interesting combinations: pomelo mango sago tofu (doufu hua); which is what I ordered, just because of the sheer interesting mix of flavors, which turned out to be rather tasty. My friend got the mango sago, which was well made as well.
Definitely like this place because the food is decent, and love that it’s not too crowded like many good Asian places. So go! Before it’s too late and becomes a place you’re not sure is worth the wait.

I’ve tried many Chinese dessert in LA but never satisified!!!
Wishing Tree is located on Atlantic Blvd in Monterey Park, the city has the highest concentration of Chinese American population in US. This place is has to be good to have a good standing in LA.
To have a scoop of Hong Kong authentic taste is not easy in LA. I know people always go to Phoenix for Chinese dessert. They aren’t as good as Wishing Tree. Wishing Tree make their dessert with heart, with fresh ingredients. Every bites bring me back good old memories from Hong Kong. Spending less than $ 5 for a simple Durian Sago Dessert reminds me of famous Hong Kong’s local taste. «Fake sharkfin soup» has the same taste like Hong Kong’s street food.
The best of all, free wifi!!! =)

This place caught my attention as I was driving down Atlantic. The décor is nice and the staff was friendly enough. The Hong Kong style street snacks was what made me want to try this place.
What I ordered:
Cuttlefish ball
Spam and egg rice bowl
HK style milk tea (hot)
I must say that what they’re known for, which are the desserts, snacks, and drinks, were not bad at all. Just don’t come here for anything else because they’ll over charge you for instant noodles and rice bowls that you can make at home.
Another thing was that the everything took long to make and we were the only ones there. My drink was one of the last things to come out and I had to remind them to make it. I think they can definitely improve on customer service.

** MY WISH CAME TRUE **
I don’t know how many it’s been, but I have been whining about how Los Angeles don’t have any Hong Kong dessert stores. True, there might be Phoenix, but they only have a few mainstream dessert items, and not enough to satisfy my tummy. The next closest place for me to satisfy one of my HK street food/​dessert craving is in San Francisco…
Yes, I am excited about the opening of WISHING TREE. It’s a cute little Hong Kong street food — dessert store that took over the old Starbucks spot. They have a huge menu. The staff were really nice and gave me recommendations when I couldn’t decided on what to order, and came over and asked my opinion on how to improve.
Really like this store because it fill my craving for Hong Kong street food & desserts, couldn’t tell you what is my favorite at this time, because I only tried 4 out of their menu, but I am sure I will be doing an update soon.
TIPS:
— FREE WIFI
— Cash Only