Kueh Ho Jiak (赞) is a new kiosk located outside Lotus’s supermarket in the basement of KSL City Mall. It sells a wide varieties of kueh, rice dumplings, cookies, cakes, etc.
Among the wide varieties of kueh, there are Teochew kueh, such as peach-shape png kueh (潮州饭粿), Hokkien ang ku kueh (红龟粿), Hainan kueh, Malay kueh, Nyonya kueh, crystal kueh (水晶糕), yam cake, and many more. The different types of crystal kueh look beautiful in their near-transparent skins with visible fillings.
Each takeaway box can hold 5 or more pieces of self-selected crystal kueh. From left to right, then bottom:
- Mushroom Vegetarian Crystal Kueh (水晶香菇素糕) has small cuts of mushroom with sweet turnips enclosed in crystal skin. As a vegetarian kueh, there is no dried shrimps.
- Mang Kuang Crystal Kueh (水晶芒光糕) has sweet turnips with shreds of red carrot.
- Spring Garlic Crystal Kueh (水晶香蒜糕) contains egg and spring garlic.
- Chive Crystal Kueh (水晶韭菜糕) has egg and chive.
- Yam Crystal Kueh (水晶芋头糕) is filled with yam cooked with mushroom and dried shrimps.
Besides the different ingredients, the way the crystal kuehs are wrapped differ from the traditional style (see Traditional Mang Kuang Kueh in next photo). They are quite big in size and taste nice with their respective flavours in soft, slight-chewy crystal skins — made from wheat flour and tapioca starch that give them the near-transparent appearance.
The Traditional Mang Kuang Kueh (传统芒光糕) — top two pieces in the photo below — has sweet turnips with shreds of red carrot, dried shrimps, etc. It features a translucent skin that is made using rice flour and tapioca starch, offering slight differences in texture and flavour from the Mang Kuang Crystal Kueh.
The third kueh (in the photo) is a repeat of the Yam Crystal Kueh (水晶芋头糕) with rich yam flavour and texture.
Kueh Ho Jiak’s peach-shape Png Kueh (饭糕) is unlike the classic Teochew-style png kueh with pink-coloured skin — made with glutinous rice flour that makes it mochi-like. The transparent skin of Kueh Ho Jiak’s png kueh is very similar to the crystal kuehs. The rice inside has also been fried with soy sauce and other ingredients. They are nice too and offer a different texture and taste experience.
The Yam Cake (芋头糕) is quite big and comprising two portions. It has chunky cuts of yam embedded in the softer yam cake and garnished with lots of fried shallots, spring onions and white sesame seeds. The cake has both soft and firmer textures of yam with a nice natural yam flavour. The garnishes provide extra flavours.
New on the shelves are mousse cakes that are sold in slices — get more with discounts during the new-launch limited-time promotion. I have a Coffee Mousse Cake, a Pandan Mousse Cake and a Japanese Cheesecake.
Top-right: The Coffee Mousse Cake has nice coffee-flavours mousse, between layers of coffee-flavoured soft cake, and topped with crunchy nuts (chocolate chips, walnuts, etc) and is mild-sweet.
Bottom-left: The Japanese Cheesecake is slightly denser than the other mousse cakes, but is still soft and has light cheesy flavour.
Bottom-right: The Pandan-Kaya Mousse Cake has jelly-like pandan-kaya layers with shredded coconut, instead of mousse, between layers of soft cake and has a nice pandan-coconut aroma and is similarly mild-sweet.
Kueh Ho Jiak’s wide selection of kuehs and lovely cakes makes it a great place to take some pastries home for next two days’ breakfasts.
Coincidentally, there is also a “Kueh Ho Jiak” in Tanjong Pagar of Singapore but they seem to be unrelated.
Address:
KSL City Mall, outside Lotus’s Supermarket
33, Jalan Seladang, Taman Abad, 80250 Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia
Opening Hours:
10am to 10pm | Daily
How to Get There:
From JB Sentral, take BAS.MY J100 to KSL City Mall. Read JB Bus: To KSL City Mall in Taman Century.
Nearby:
More @ KSL City Mall:
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