Kwan Kee Store (坤记糕品) is a Chinese-style traditional desserts brand, established since 1965, that hailed from Hong Kong. The brand has been accoladed by Hong Kong Michelin Guide for 6 consecutive years from 2016 to 2021. It setups its first shop in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in late 2023. In July 2024, its first outlet in Johor Bahru opened on the ground floor of Holiday Villa Hotel in Taman Century, adjacent to KSL City Mall — it is also a great news for Singapore residents.
Since its opening in Johor Bahru, Kwan Kee Store has attracted long queues and their desserts are sold out fast, especially on weekends — so I visit the store only on weekdays.
Kwan Kee Store has also opened new outlets in AEON Mall Tebrau City, on Level 3 of JB City Square and also in Mid Valley Southkey Mall. The JB City Square kiosk has become very convenient for Singapore residents to buy the desserts and bring back across the border.
A characteristic of Kwan Kee Store is the use of ancient stone grinding method (研磨) to grind various types of flour used in their desserts. This gives the resulting desserts smoother and creamier textures. All desserts are sold chilled.
Kwan Kee Store’s signature desserts are their brown and white sugar rice bowl cakes (碗糕 / 缽仔糕), which are famous street food in Hong Kong. Other Chinese desserts / pastries in their long glass shelves include water chestnut cake, white sugar sponge cake (白糖糕), red bean cake, black sesame layer cake, pandan cake, almond cake, hawthorn cake, jujube cake, etc. Samplers are available for trying before buying the desserts. Other than desserts, various types of cookie in gift boxes are available too.
Their signature White Sugar / Brown Sugar Rice Bowl Cake are Hong Kong’s traditional specialties, also called rice bowl pudding (砵仔糕). They are made in bowls by adding white or brown sugar to rice flour with cooked red beans and then steamed. The resulting rice cakes have slight chewy texture with very low sweetness and natural sweet flavour of red beans. The main difference between the two types of rice bowl cake, other than colours, is the natural flavours of white sugar or brown sugar — if you have acute taste buds to tell the difference. Made with rice, these cakes can be very filling — one piece is nearly one bowl of rice.
Other than the signature White / Brown Sugar Rice Bowl Cake, there is another newer version of rice bowl cake called Yam & Purple Potato Rice Bowl Cake. It is similar to the White Sugar Rice Bowl Cake except that red beans are replaced by a soft purplish paste of yam mixed with purple sweet potato embedded in the centre of the cake. This dessert is similarly of low sweetness with rich flavours of yam and sweet potato. Nice!
The Water Chestnut Cake (马蹄糕) is a Cantonese dim sum dessert made with water chestnut flour added with chopped bits of water chestnut. The cake has a glassy, translucent appearance and is bouncy. It has a mildly sweet and refreshing taste with crunchiness of the water chestnut bits.
The Steamed Pandan Coconut Milk Cake is made using Kwan Kee’s homemade ground tapioca starch and has 7 layers with alternating green and white. The cake has mild pandan flavour with rich coconut milk sweetness. This is very similar to the 2-layer pandan Nyonya kueh (kuih talam pandan) among Peranakan kuehs.
The Steamed Almond Cake (杏仁狀元糕) is made using almond powder, milk and chunky crushed almond nuts. The white cake is mild sweet with a distinctive almond-milk flavour and crunchiness of the almond nuts.
In the photo below (from left to right), the Steamed Red Date (Jujube) Cake, Molasses Chestnut Cake and Steamed Osmanthus Cake are of ultra-low sweetness and with light flavours from respective cake. As usual, they are great desserts to have without having to worry about calories.
The Steamed Red Bean Cake has whole red beans with mellow flavour of red bean and mild-sweet. The whole red beans give the cake some biting texture in addition to the soft cake.
In the middle, the Molasses Chestnut Cake (again) with a view of the bottom layer.
The Black Sesame Rolled Cake is a new item on the shelf. Rolled with a layer of chewy rice flour, the cake has a mellow black sesame flavour with a mochi-like chewiness.
The Steamed Hawthorn Cake (山楂糕) is another dessert that is rolled and is one of their hot-selling items — I missed it twice after not going for it when I had the chance on the first visit. The dessert is cool, refreshing and bouncy with a mild sourish-sweet flavour. The sourish note is the characteristic taste of hawthorn.
The signature White Sugar Sponge Cake (白糖糕) is not the soft type as compared to other white sugar sponge cake in Singapore and Malaysia — probably Hong Kong style — and is mild sweet. Those who prefers sponge cake with firmer texture should try this too.
The Steamed Black Sesame Layer Cake (黑芝麻糕) has a strong black sesame flavour but not overpowering. Its sweetness level is very low — just enough to overcome the natural bitterness of black sesame seeds. It offers a different texture from the Black Sesame Rolled Cake.
And, it is time for some fruity sticky rice rolls! From left to right in the photo below:
The Musang King (Durian) Sticky Rice Roll has the strongest aroma among the series of sticky rice rolls, but much mellower than the real fruit. Its durian fragrance is more sweet-smelling than pungent. For durian-lovers, it is a nice dessert with durian flesh wrapped in stretchy glutinous rice (or mochi) skin.
The Pandan Red Bean Sticky Rice Roll has red beans wrapped in greenish pandan-flavoured mochi skin. The creamy red bean filling has a taste very similar to Potong red bean ice-cream in addition to the pandan flavour from the mochi skin. There is another version with plain mochi skin.
The Chinese Yam with Sweet Potato Sticky Rice Roll has purplish sweet potato-flavoured rice skin wrapping whitish Chinese yam (huai shan / 淮山) in a twirl. The Chinese yam has very subtle flavour with low sweetness and tends to highlight the mellow flavour of sweet potato in the rice skin.
The Mango Sago Pomelo Sticky Rice Roll has a rectangular pudding-like core, made with mango, sago and pomelo, wrapped in the rice skin. On savouring the rice roll, the pudding will give bursts of mango flavour at times, and bursts of sago or pomelo flavour at other times.
The Sweet Corn Sticky Rice Roll has sweet corns made into similar pudding-like core with slightly firmer texture and smooth sweet corn flavour. Added in the pudding are sweet, crunchy corn kernels for some chewing pleasure.
Kwan Kee Store’s Chinese-style cakes and rice rolls are nice as desserts and mostly of low sweetness. And, unlike other Chinese or Nyonya cakes (kueh), they are non-greasy. The chilled dessert-cakes should preferably be consumed within the same day of purchase. If refrigerated in air-tight container, they can last for another 2 days. Sticky rice rolls are best to be consumed by second day, as coldness reduces the elasticity of the mochi skins.
Kwan Kee Store’s Hong Kong outlet is located in the Avenue of Stars.
Read: Hong Kong Eat: Kwan Kee Store (坤记糕点) @ Tsim Sha Tsui
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Address @ Main Outlet:
Hotel Holiday Villa JB, Ground Floor Shop 7
260, Jalan Dato Sulaiman, Taman Abad, 80250 Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia
Opening Hours:
11am to 8pm (or sold out) | 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.
Address @ JB City Square:
JB City Square Shopping Centre, Level 3, J3-26B
106-108, Jalan Wong Ah Fook, Bandar Johor Bahru, 80000 Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia
Opening Hours:
10am to 10pm | Daily
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