AMONG colleagues who are in their youthful 20s, I am as old as the hills.

At 30, I am ancient enough to remember, for example, a time when Nonya pineapple tarts weren’t the most popular Chinese New Year snack.

I grew up in a Cantonese household, where my mother used to deep-fry sweet potato dough balls for festive bites. My late grandmother would also make “taro prawns” (a fancy name for savoury deep-fried strips of taro and ginger).

Somehow, such traditional treats seem to have disappeared from the culinary landscape of Singapore.

So thank goodness shops like Da Sheng Hong Kong Pastry in Chinatown are keeping some Cantonese traditions alive. This three-year-old shop sells such classic confectioneries as wife cakes, egg tarts and century egg pastries.

I like the century egg pastry here (60 cents each). Unlike some versions I have tasted, the pastry is light and crumbly and the lotus seed paste tastes subtle and far from cloying.

There is also a generous heap of cubed century egg inside each pastry.

The wife cakes (80 cents each) are decent too, with candied winter melon filling that is on the right side of chewy.

Shop owner Chan Yuk Ling, 42, is from Hong Kong, where she used to operate a confectionery.

After she emigrated to Singapore about five years ago, she decided to set up a similar shop and for an authentic touch, she brought in a chef from, where else, Hong Kong.

For Chinese New Year, the shop is offering water chestnut jellies, which I have been told are selling like hot cakes.

Usually priced at $8, they were on discount when I went to the shop last week.

I bought one for $5, chilled it, cut it and ate a slice. And then two more. The jelly, thick with crunchy chunks of water chestnut, was just delightful.

And as old folks in your family may tell you, it is good for you too. After all, water chestnuts are known for their cooling, healing quality. This jelly might just keep that Chinese New Year cookie-induced sore throat away.
 
DA SHENG HONG KONG PASTRY
36 Sago Street
Open: 10am to 7pm on weekdays, 10am to 10pm on weekends
Rating:  ***

This article was first published in The Sunday Times on Jan 28, 2007