New Wong Wah: Wife Cakes 4 Dayz

Once upon a time, I journeyed to the Lower East Side in search of the infamous wife cakes, aka sweetheart cakes, aka  Lao Po Bing. These little pastries are one of my mom's favorite baked goods, and I have grown to love them as well. I tried several different bakeries before coming to a conclusion, but I have to say New Wong Wah Bakery is by far the best Lao Po Bing I've had. Ever.

There are several speculations as to how this pastry acquired its name. My favorite of the folk tales involves a wife selling herself as a slave to pay for the medicine of her sick father-in-law, so the husband made a cake to buy his wife back. Human trafficking and pastries, heart warming story isn't it? I guess this version is more eloquent.

A shot of Canal Street. I think it would be clever if NY renamed Bowery to Bao-ery, but that's just me. If I ever start a bakery it would definitely be named "The Baoery on Bowery."

 

The exterior. This is quite fancy of a Chinese bakery. Hell yeah we have a A rating in sanitation. Model minority myth son.

Not much seating in the interior, and the minimal seats they do offer are usually filled with old Chinese men, sipping tea and eating pastries all day. That, my friends, is what we call the American Dream.

I purchased 20 wife cakes, because its seriously the best breakfast food ever.

I have yet to find a place that makes wife cakes as well as Wong Wah. The interior is made with candied winter melon while the flaky exterior is  a mixture of flour, oil, and egg. Just to clarify, I don't always buy 20 at a time, but I was headed to studio, and they were fresh from the oven. SO HARD TO RESIST!!! That's what she said. And in case you were wondering, yes these were shot from studio.

The crust is pretty basic, and any bakery can reproduce it. What really makes the cake, is the filling. In this particular case, the candied winter melon is rough chopped up into larger pieces to create a really nice textured filling. While most of the filling is very soft, there are certain instances that have a crunch, which gives the pastry a nice bite. It's hard to describe unless you've had candied winter melon.

In general I prefer my foods to have varying textures, like mashed potatoes. I would take a roughly mashed potatoes over a very creamy mash any day.