Monday, June 24, 2013

Media invite: Lek Lim Nonya Cake Confectionery


Lek Lim Nonya Cake Confectionery 

Recently I was contacted by Gavan, the guy behind this nostalgic Nonya kueh confectionery, for a visit to his shop. I was thrilled beyond words definitely! Grabbed two of my girlfriends along and here we set off for a 'Kueh Kueh experience'.



Before I start, here's a brief introduction of the shop:

Lek Lim Nonya Cake Confectionery started off in 1968 as a humble family business, selling kueh from home. From there, they expanded to open their own shop in 1987 at their current location (Just beside Fengshan Wet Market & Hawker Center), after gaining much popularities. Despite the advancement in technology, Lek Lim Nonya Cake Confectionery believes in producing food that are labouriously handmade, even if this means that they have to be at work as early as 3.30am in the morning. 

As the shop is now run by the third generation of the family, Gavan and his team continues to strive to make the best Nonya kueh. I'm sure they are successful in that as their kueh is highly demanded not only by their customers, but also external suppliers. They even created 'healthier choice' recipes of their kueh to cater to some of their health-conscious customers, such as the vegetarian version of their signature Nonya kueh and the reduction of eggs in their kueh recipes. 


As of today, Lek Lim Nonya Cake Confectionery is a Halal certified shop selling a huge variety of handmade Nonya kueh as well as curry puffs, sardine puffs, spring rolls and fried yam cakes. 


Moving on to the exciting part of this visit, I was given the opportunity to learn the 'art-of-ang-ku-kueh-making' from Gavan. 

For those who are unfamiliar, Ang ku kueh or Red tortoise cake is an oval shaped Chinese pastry with soft sticky glutinous rice flour skin wrapped around a sweet filling in the centre. It is molded to resemble a tortoise shell and is presented resting on a square piece of banana leaf.  Ang ku kueh are shaped like tortoise shells because the Chinese traditionally believed that eating tortoises would bring longevity to those who are eating it and thus, bring about good fortune and prosperity. 


The ang ku kueh skin and fillings were already prepared beforehand. 


So we just have to shape and mold! 


The ang ku kueh that we made!


For sure it wasn't an easy job, especially to maintain the consistency of each and every ang ku kueh! For that, I must really give praises to Gavan and his team for hand-making all their Nonya kueh. 


Our 'babies' freshly out from the steamer. I can now proudly say that I have made ang ku kueh! :')


Besides, ang ku kueh, we also had the opportunity to make our own Pulut Inti, a blue coloured glutinous rice Nonya snack topped with grated coconut specially cooked in gula melaka (yet another brilliant idea by Gavan).


I swear it definitely is not as easy to make as it looks! You first have to ensure a good ratio of the rice to grated coconut to give the right shape, next you need to have the right folding technique to create that pyramid-shape of Pulut Inti.  


Finally, Gavan gave us a tour around their humble shop. The area is not very big, but you'll be surprised just the amount of kueh they produce in their shop daily and most importantly, truly handmade by the team. 


Peng Kueh, one of my favourite snack!


Freshly made Soon Kueh, yet another favourite snack of mine. As we were late, so we missed the timing for soon kueh making. :( 


Can you guess what is this? 

It's actually the huge pot that they use to cook their grated coconut with gula melaka


Kueh lapis, which interestingly has 10-layers for their version. So next time count the layers of your kueh lapis! You might be eating the ones from Lek Lim Nonya Cake Confectionery. :D 


Kueh Salat Nonya. Yet another popular Nonya kueh. 


Huge tray of my favourite yam kueh! Everything seems to be my favourite. :P


Trays after trays of professionally made ang ku kueh.


Oneh oneh, definitely a familiar Nonya kueh as well. 


Kueh Bengka Nonya. I super love this too!! 


Colourful mini huat kueh. I like too! Bahahaha!


They also have a huge variety of fried food, such as this enormous yam cake. Just looking at this is enough to make me salivate! 


Enormous spring rolls! 


Just carrot cake itself, I think there are like 3 different versions?

 

Aren't you spoiled for choices now? 


Of course the visit wouldn't be complete without some food tasting! Gavan was so generous to give the 3 of us each a bag of this huge spread of yummy food! Of course ang ku kueh were made by yours truly. 

Because I was unwell, so I didn't have any of the fried food. :( That aside, the ang ku kueh was really a hit!  The skin was very soft and chewy and I especially love the mung bean filling. Couldn't resist having 4 despite it being dinner time. :P Special mentions to the soon kueh and gu chai kueh as well because the fillings were super generous and I love that the skin of the kueh was very thin. Definitely a guilt-free snack for me. By the way, I left the Ubi Kaya Nonya for the next day and to my surprise, the kueh was still very soft and of course chewy!


Once again, thank you Gavan for the invitation. It was definitely an eye-opening experience for me! 

For more information, do check out their website

Lek Lim Nonya Cake Confectionery 
Blk 84, Bedok North Street 4, 
#01-21, Singapore 460084
(T) 6449 0815
Opening hours: 6.30am-6pm (Mon-Sat)
                6.30am-2pm (Sun)

Love,
Lirong. 

7 comments:

  1. wahhhh i wish i could get some of that! I'm like you, everything seems to be my favourite too =P because I just love nonya kuih!

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    Replies
    1. hehe.. High 5 babe!! Nonya kueh is just so yummy!! have you tried making any? :)

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  2. yup i've tried pumpkin kuih, sweet potato kuih, red bean kuih, gula melaka + sago layered kuih, and also 9-payer kuih lapis but that one the texture wasn't as nice. Bit hard =( Wanna your recipe! aaaah i wanna go singapore!!!! ><!

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    Replies
    1. Wow! That's a lot of kueh you have tried! Awww~ Thank you! Let me know if you like it ya? Hopefully you get to visit Singapore soon as well!!! :D :D :D

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