Review on Macau Souvenirs- Indulgence with Pastries from Koi Kei Bakery (鉅記餅家)

Koi Kee Bakery is a wildly popular franchise in Macau known for their local specialties. Ubiquitous pastries from Koi Kee Bakery; Macau were the biggest shopping haul during my visit to Macau. It's often a great experience when free samplings were provided and I've ended up bringing back 3 big packets of pastries from Koi Kee Bakery for my family.

1. Almond cookies

As stated in my blog review earlier, Macau Koi Kei Almond Cookies are the best almond cookies I have tasted. The renowned almond cookies with whole almond within and I often crave for another piece after finishing one. Each almond cookie has sufficient amount of almond bits and a whole almond, giving it extra crunch. 

Macau Koi Kei Almond Cookies

2. Portuguese style pineapple pastry

15 individual packing of pineapple pastries are in a nice packaging. Its packaging has me remembering the pineapple pastries from Taiwan too.

Hexagon-shaped pineapple pastry which is packed with strong taste of pineapple filling.

Thankfully, it's with fair sweetness.

3. Wife Cake

Wife cakes from Koi Kei has flaky skin (less flaky than Hang Heung's) topping with some white sesames. The winter melon filling of the wife cakes have just the right amount of sweetness. and it has lesser pork lard smell.

4. Almond Pastry ( Almond Flakes)

Puff-like, flakky almond pastry with a light almond topping. Koi Kei Bakery has machinery-made and hand-made, I had chosen the latter one. This delicious almond flake crumbles at the slightest touch (bite) and it's not too sweet for me. The top layer of the almond flake cookies are sugar crusted almonds with crispy layers beneath.

A crumbly texture yet crunchy at each bite of flaky almond pastry.

Undoubtedly, I couldn't resist to have more crunches of these almond flakes.

5.  Koi Kei Bakery's Signature Egg Rolls

The signature egg rolls from Koi Kei Bakery does not fail my expectation. Crispy egg rolls with nice and strong egg flavor. The egg roll sheets are thin, contributing a tender crust and a crumbly finish.

6. Peanut candy

There are few versions of peanut candies offered by Koi Kei Bakery such as chewy type, crunchy type, with sesames, with shredded coconut and etc. I had bought the crunchy type. It's quite similar to the ones we could obtain in Malaysia. 

 

Hard sugar candies embedded with shredded peanuts.

Crispy peanut candies are the perfect snacks when you're bored at work.

7. Macau Museum of Souvenir - contains Black sesame biscuit, walnut cookie, peanut candies.

A box pertaining 4 types of cookies produced by Koi Kei Bakery had been given due to the huge purchase I had in Macau. I personally love the black sesame biscuit very much. Notably, I just found that Macau Museum of Souvenir was the 1st museum which was souvenirs-themed and founded on July 19, 2011. Perhaps give a try when visit to Macau in future?

Other Macau specialties from 澳门牌坊手信

Pork floss egg rolls and seaweed + pork floss egg rolls which are crispy could be obtained from the nearby pastry shops in Macau too. The one we tried from 澳门牌坊手信 tasted nice and much cheaper compared to Koi Kei pastries.

Review on Hong Kong & Macau Souvenirs- Almond Cookies杏仁饼

While it's great to be home, a part of myself starts missing the hectic walk at Hong Kong and of course the foods there. The souvenirs that bought back from Hong Kong and Macau could have my family and I enjoyed for few months.

Partial Hong Kong and Macau souvenirs
(Jenny Bakery's Butter Cookies, Kee Wah's almond cookies and walnut cookies, Koi Kei Bakery's almond biscuits, peanut sweet, wife cake.)

After the blog entry about wife cake that I bought back from Hong Kong and Macau, here's another review about the almond cookies 杏仁饼. 

1. Koi Kei Bakery (鉅記手信)

The most favorite almond cookies that I have tasted is from Koi Kei Bakery 鉅記手信; Macau.As featured in the famous TVB Drama named 巨輪, the owner of Koi Kei Bakery (鉅記餅家) is very particular about the quality of cookies/ pastries. The resulting quiche is mouthwatering with lovely crumbly pastries.

The taste：Each of the cookie has crunchy toasted almond bits, perhaps it's the reason of the almond cookies of Koi Kei Bakery 鉅記手信 having strong aroma of almond. As I bought the handmade and vegetarian type, the cookies were free of pork lard ingredient.

The packaging: While the pastries from Koi Kei Bakery 鉅記手信 are great, the service is great and the staffs are generously providing the samples for tasting. The staffs help to wrap the plastic handles with bubble wrap which enables me to hold the heavy bags easier and more convenient. The thick packaging itself is great and nice.

2. Kee Wah Bakery (奇華餅家)

Kee Wah has an extensive number of franchises in Hong Kong, including at Hong Kong International Airport. We dropped by one of the franchises at Central MRT station. Anyone still remembers the popular Hong Kong TVB Drama 家好月圆 (Moonlight Resonance)? The show was produced especially for Kee Wah Bakery’s 70th Anniversary. 

Kee Wah almond cookie and Koi Kei Bakery 's ginger candy 姜糖
The ginger candy was given by my colleague. Strong ginger aftertaste!

The logo of Kee Wah on the almond cookie were merely seen.
The soft, flaky cookie with some almond bits.

The taste：Kee Wah's almond cookie does not have the coarse amount of almond bits of the almond cookies from Koi Kei Bakery. It's similar to the Koi Kei's which has nice crunchy texture, except that it's more tender, smoother due to less crunchy toasted almond bits.

The packaging: As shown in the 1st photo, I would say that the packaging is quite nice, but I prefer Koi Kei's.Well, the price of pastries bought at Macau are more expensive than those bought from Hong Kong. 

 3. Hang Heung Cake Shop (恒香老餅家)

 As stated in previous blog post, Hang Heung Cake Shop is famed for its wife cake.

The taste：I'm unsure if it's due to machine-made, Hang Heung's almond cookies are harder to bite compared to Koi Kei's and Kee Wah's. The pork lard aftertaste covers the almond taste. I don't really like this version, and after trying all, I would vote the signature almond cookies from Koi Kei Bakery as the champion.

The packaging: A classic packaging with red color and pink flowers as decoration.

Stay tuned for my next blog entries about the cookies that I bought from Hong Kong and Macau

Review on Hong Kong & Macau Souvenirs- Wife Cake (Lao Po Bing) 老婆饼

Here are the 1st blog entry about Hong Kong and Macau pastry that I had tried before continuing to blog about my Hong Kong and Macau Tour. Wife cake or Sweetheart cake are more commonly known as Lao Po Bing/ Lou Po Beng; a common snack at Hong Kong. They are found everywhere in Hong Kong, almost every bakery bakes it. Wife cake is a Chinese traditional pastry with winter melon paste.

Quoted from Asiansupper.com, the most popular version of the story behind the wife cake is:

During imperial China, a husband and wife are very rich in the amount of love for each other, but very poor in material wealth.  The wife’s father-in law falls ill and requires medical attention.  Unfortunately, the couple does not have enough money.  The wife gives the ultimate gift of love - by selling herself as a slave to fund the medical care for her father in law.  When the husband finds out, he creates a pastry with sweetened winter melon and almond – dedicating the pastry to the memory to his wife.  The wife cake (lao po bing) gains such popularity that the husband is able to buy his wife back and cure his father of his ailment.

 1. Hang Heung Cake Shop (恒香老餅家)

One of the souvenirs I bought back from Hong Kong and Macau trip was few boxes of wife cakes from Hang Heung Cake Shop 恆香老餅家 and Koi Kei Bakery (鉅記餅家).Hang Heung Cake Shop 恆香老餅家 is famed for its freshly baked wife cakes, thus I had brought back few boxes as well. I have also bought the almond cookies from Hang Heung Cake Shop (恒香老餅家).

The taste：The texture of the pastry is very soft, flaky skin. The winter melon paste is well balanced of sweetness. However, it has a strong taste of pork lard which is deemed disturbing to my mom. She would prefer Koi Kei Bakery which is not overwhelmed with pork lard taste. Despite of the pork lard taste, you may try to warm it up by microwaves in which the crumbs are tasted nicer when it's served warmed and the winter melon paste is like melting inside the mouth. Notably, Hang Heung wife cakes could only last for 5-7 days due to no preservatives are used.

The packaging: Unlike the rest of bakeries such as Wing Wah, Kae Wah and even Koi Kei Bakery, Hang Heung Cake Shop uses a simple,red color paper box with a pink raffia string tie to secure the 6 pieces of wife cakes. As the pastries are flaky, hence hand carry of these wife cakes would be necessary. 

2. Koi Kei Bakery (鉅記手信)


During this Hong Kong and Macau tour, most of my HK dollars were spent on purchasing pastries as souvenirs for family from Koi Kei Bakery 鉅記餅家老婆餅 . The signature pastry from Koi Kei Bakery is the egg rolls and almond cookies-which I had included in the next review, Click here for more details.

The taste：The flaky skin (less flaky than Hang Heung's) and topped with some white sesames. The winter melon filling of the wife cakes have just the right amount of sweetness. and it has lesser pork lard smell. Well, it's my mom's favorite wife cake. Hopefully I could re-visit Macau to bring back the Lao Gong Bing with salty type of filling.

The packaging: Koi Kei Bakery Shop places a lot of efforts on the packaging. Each of its pastries (egg rolls, almond cookies, wife cakes, pineapple tart and etc. ) has different kind of good quality packaging. I have already kept few empty boxes to place my earrings.