Hopia like it

 by: Lian Nami Buan

If a jeepney ride could take you around the streets of Quiapo, a tour by foot in the seemingly eccentric home of the Black Nazarene can offer more than just sight-seeing. A turn from the optical street of quiapo, Paterno St., could lead you to the Chinatown Rotunda in front of the Sta. Cruz Church. And even amidst the scorching heat, the Chinese Pastry shops are just too tempting to pass up.

Many Chinese delicacies has become a big hit to the Filipino market, even tikoys are sold to genuine Filipinos during the Chinese New Year. And because we have always been negatively represented as Juan Tamad, the biggest sell-out foods among us are those that doesn’t require cooking, baking or re-heating. What better to give us that none-hassle merienda than the ready-to-eat hopias?

It was during the American Civil Occupation when the Chinese introduced the Fujian original cake, which will later be known as Hopia, to the Philippines. And ever since then, hopia has undergone a lot of recipe innovations to make it more fitting to the Filipino tongue. The pastry went through a lot of reshaping, reflavoring, and repackaging over the years, but as they say, nothing beats the original.

If one would take hopia back to basics, it could only go down to two words: Ongpin St. and Mongo.

Hopiang Mungo is the most popular kind of hopia, a flaky dough cake filled with sweet split mung bean paste while Ongpin St. houses four of the best, most popular shops that bakes Hopia Mungos.

Eng Bee Tin

Ongpin St., Binondo Manila

Welcoming customers upon the entry of the intersection between Ongpin St. and Gonzalo Puyat St. is Eng Bee Tin, a small stall cluttered among the shops it shares the building with. Perhaps the 1970 version of the store wasn’t quite as sharp-looking as it is now. They pack their hopias with tin foil wraps and stack them into cushioned baskets in a shelf to make it look as modern as it can get, adopting the look of American bakeshops.

A pack of 4 medium-sized Hopia Mungos are sold for 32 pesos. The molo wrap is unusually thin, so as to not add too much flaky taste to its filling. The mung bean paste has an authentic real mongo taste to it to balance the sweetness. And indeed, it wasn’t hailed one of the most delicious hopia brands for nothing.

Salazar Bakeshop

Ongpin St., Binondo Manila

Straight ahead from Eng Bee Tin is the 60 year old Salazar Bakeshop. The shop smells Chinese food all over, with it offering a variant of Chinese delicacies; from hopia to buchi. The wide range of choices for the different Hopia flavours made the decision a little difficult: which to buy? Even Hopia Mungo are classified into Black Mongo, Black Mongo Bean, Mongo with cheese, and pure Mongo. But the simpler the better right?

Salazar went for the Chinese trademark, putting a red dot on top of it. The hopias, sold for 29 pesos, were thicker than the usual; add to that the multiple layers of molo wraps. On first bite, it tastes almost a little unsweet especially with the mongo aftertaste. But chomping it down piece by piece would leave you no choice but to love its unsweetened flavour.

Diao Eng Chay

Salazar St., Binondo Manila

From Salazar Bakeshop, one would have to do a good 10-minute walk to cross the arch bridge before one could reach the Salazar St.. To the right is a wide alley of mixed shops, drugstores, jewellery shops and restaurants, but by the end is a lowly hidden shop by the name of Diao Eng Chay. It has never transferred to another building since its establishment almost 50 years ago, and their over the counter selling approach hasn’t as well.

Four small pieces can be taken home for 40 pesos.Its molo wrap crumbles easily, maybe a convenience to those who wants to eat the filling right away. If there is such a thing as a sweet mongo, then it definitely is their secret ingredient. The mongo taste and sugar is mixed perfectly that distinguishing between them is almost impossible. Perfect for the sweet-tooths who are big fans of traditional-tasting cakes.

Holland Hopia

Yuchengco St., Binondo Manila

Going back to Ongpin St., two blocks away from Salazar St. is Yuchengco St., an empty alley which bans all transportations from entering. Situated along the street are towering condominiums and offices, far from the old two-storey stores that dominate Chinatown. Peeping through the modern buildings is an old big sign which says: Ho-Land Hopia. It would probably take a while to figure out which store the sign is referring to, it being a tiny almost unrecognizable bakeshop. Although its air-conditioned area packed with too many Chinese customers would tell you that this store has become anything but abandoned.

The fact that its customers are almost all Chinese tells you something. Its taste is made for the Chinese tongue. The hopia, priced 35 pesos, is a little oily, and its watery texture results to plain taste. Filipinos would maybe judge it as the absence of flavour, but Chinese would just say if they want to eat sweetened cake, they’d go for mooncakes not hopias.