Bakery: New Hwong Kok
City: Milpitas, CA

My parents received some taro cake from the family friends we had dinner with on Saturday night. They got it from New Hwong Kok, a Chinese bakery in Milpitas. The bakery apparently only makes steamed taro cake for Chinese New Year.

My dad pan fried slices of taro cake with green onion and egg, for dinner tonight! I usually make my own sauce to go with the taro cake, with Ajinimoto gyoza dipping sauce, sesame oil, and Sriracha or garlic chili sauce.

A similar Cantonese dish is daikon cake, where daikon is used instead of taro. Whichever ingredient is used, the taro or daikon in the cake can be in chunky pieces, thin pieces, and/or in a paste with the rice flour. In the photo below, you can tell that the taro is in chunky pieces. Taro and daikon cakes are also popular to make and eat during Chinese New Year.

Speaking of which…that’s tomorrow, Jan 31! Happy Lunar New Year!!! :D

Taro cake (simplified Chinese: 芋头糕; traditional Chinese: 芋頭糕; Jyutping: wu⁶ tau⁴ gou¹) is a Cantonese dish made from the vegetable taro. While it is denser in texture than radish (daikon) cakes, both these savory cakes made in a similar ways, with rice flour as the main ingredient. When served in dim sum cuisine, it is cut into square-shaped slices and pan-fried before serving. It is found in Hong Kong, China, and overseas Chinatowns restaurants. Other ingredients often include pork and Chinese black mushroom, or even Chinese sausages. It is usually topped with chopped scallions. The pan fried square taro cake is semi-crunchy on the outside and medium-soft on the inside. It is also the most consistent version with more or less the same formula in East and Southeast Asia, or among overseas Chinese communities. (Wikipedia)

Guangdong (simplified Chinese: 广东; traditional Chinese: 廣東; Mandarin Pinyin: Guǎngdōng; Jyutping: gwong² dung¹) is a province on the South China Sea coast of the People’s Republic of China. Guangdong is also known as Canton or Kwangtung Province in English. (Wikipedia)

Cantonese cuisine comes from Guangdong province and is one of the Eight Culinary Traditions of Chinese cuisine. Its prominence outside China is due to the great numbers of early emigrants from Guangdong. Cantonese chefs are highly sought after throughout China. When Westerners speak of Chinese food, they usually refer to Cantonese cuisine. (Wikipedia)