The Chinese character for this steamed "cake" (slice, $1) alludes to flour made from glutinous rice. Inevitably, however, such confections also incorporate another flour — often tapioca, sometimes water chestnut — so they're not blobby, like mochi, but can take and retain a better-defined shape. For this cake the flours have been blended with ground black sesame seeds, sugar, and water, then poured into a tray and steamed, again and again, layer by inky layer.
Previously: Most hopia are on the sweet side, in the not-too-sweet manner of Chinese pastries; mung bean paste is a common filling. Generally the dough is fattened with lard, but hopia baboy take the meme to an extreme: in this five-pack (shown below, 10 oz. total, $2.75), the filling marries the flavors of fatty pork and green onion. Other hopia baboy reportedly feature winter melon that's been slow-cooked in lard; I've yet to find these in New York.
New Golden Fung Wong Bakery
41 Mott St. (Pell-Bayard Sts.), Manhattan
212-267-4037
