LA’s Longstanding Asian Dessert Shop Arrives in Kearny Mesa

Known across greater Los Angeles for its specialty Asian sweets, Phoenix Dessert opens in Kearny Mesa this weekend where it replaces Snoice in the Clairemont Mesa Boulevard complex that also houses Yakitori Hino. Pacific Coast Commercial facilitated both sides of the lease.

Owner Elena Chang and her family oversee an empire that began almost 60 years ago in Chinatown when her in-laws opened the still-running Phoenix Inn, one of LA’s classic restaurants, which is centered around Cantonese cuisine. More than 30 years after its founding, Phoenix Inn branched out to Alhambra, where Chang developed a new dessert menu after attending the Cordon Bleu. Eventually, the family opened a dedicated dessert shop next door and now operates nine Phoenix Food Boutiques that blend dishes from Phoenix Inn and Phoenix Dessert.

The Kearny Mesa location is the company’s first outside of the LA area, an expansion spurred by demand from customers who often drive up from San Diego for Phoenix’s desserts, says Chang.

Though it will offer select savory items like soy-marinated chicken wings, curry fish balls, and crispy shrimp rolls, the shop will mainly focus on its premium desserts.

Phoenix Dessert

Among its bestsellers are fresh mochi, including green tea mochi with black sesame filling and strawberry mochi with red bean filling, as well as mochi durian rolls featuring Thai monthong durian. There’s also longan or Hong Kong milk tea ice cream, mango shave ice, and passion fruit panna cotta.

Phoenix Dessert

Other specialties include dessert soups in flavors like black sticky rice with young coconut, red bean and lotus seed, and black sesame, for which the kitchen roasts three types of sesame seeds and grinds them into a silky textured sweet soup. Phoenix also serves drinks, ranging from an organic kumquat and honey refresher to a coconut milk-based beverage with sago pearls and fresh mango, watermelon, and honeydew.

Chang tells Eater that if all goes well, she can foresee the company opening up two more Phoenix locations in San Diego.

Phoenix Dessert

Phoenix Dessert Menu