Kee Wah Bakery
729 W Garvey Ave
Monterey Park, CA 91755
(626) 281-2680
www.keewah.us
When Boyfriend and I were in college, we used to go on eating trips to either LA or Monterey Park all the time. Drive up in the morning, meet up with some friends, eat and buy food and come back at night. After college, with our friends moving away, and us getting lazier, we stopped making the food trips so often. It's been almost two years since our last trip to Monterey Park. I finally convinced Boyfriend to take a driving/eating trip since we had a three day weekend.
Our first stop was Kee Wah Bakery. Kee Wah is a pretty well known chinese bakery chain. They sell a variety of chinese breads, cakes, cookies. They are pretty well known for their pineapple cakes and moon cakes.
When we were there, we saw lots of moon cakes on display. I forgot that the Moon Cake Festival is coming up.
I've been to this Kee Wah location numerous times and have tried various breads, cakes, cookies. The reason why this place is on my list of places I must go to in Monterey Park though is because of their egg tarts. Giant egg tarts. The biggest I've ever seen. Also, Kee Wah makes their original egg tarts the old way, which is really hard to find now. Most egg tarts are now made with a flaky crust. The Kee Wah egg tarts are made with a buttery, pie-like crust. I love this crust. Not sweet and not oily. Their egg custard filling is also not too sweet. And apparently not all the Kee Wah bakeries make the egg tarts the same. I previously went to the one in Milpitas, and their egg tarts were not the same.
On this trip, I picked up some sponge cakes, a pound cake slice, and a mango flavored pineapple cake. The sponge cakes were a bit dry. They sell these packaged ones and ones that are just wrapped in saran wrap. I like the saran wrap ones better because they are much more soft and moist, but they also go bad very quickly.
The poundcake was very moist and not too sweet. I also enjoyed the mango flavored pineapple cake. But it was oh so expensive. I think it was $2.50 for the small little mango cake.
And of course, I had to get my egg tarts. Kee Wah actually has three kinds of egg tarts, but only their original egg tarts are enormous in size. I've tried their Portuguese egg tarts before and didn't like them as much.
The egg tarts have the diameter of softballs, maybe a bit bigger. I'm not even sure what they bake them in since they are bigger than your standard tartlet or muffin baking pan. They were as good as I remembered. Crunchy, buttery crust and a custard rich in egg flavor.
Hee hee, I know what you mean! I always end up with a ton of stuff. I was only able to resist this time because they were out of pineapple buns and a lot of my other favorites. I did buy eight of the giant egg tarts though…It’s hard to find them made this way. This is the only place I know of that still makes them like this. I remember all my egg tarts when I was little were like this. I’m not sure why the change.
It’s hard for me to go to places like this because I would buy out the store. At least a dozen of pineapple cakes and buns. I haven’t seen egg tart like that since I was little. Didn’t realize there was still a place that makes them. I forgot all about the Moon Festival too.