Kedai Biskut Chai Huat Heng (再发兴饼家), located near to Pontian Lau Pasar (笨珍老巴刹) in Pontian Kechil, is a family-run traditional bakery that makes a wide varieties of Chinese traditional pastries, wedding cakes, longevity buns, etc, and also mooncakes during Mid-Autumn Festival. The bakery has been around for more than 80 years and the skills of hand-making their pastries are passed down from generation to generation.
One of Chai Huat Heng's specialties is the big traditional Teochew la pia (潮州朥饼) that is popular as wedding cake or as mooncake during Mid Autumn Festival. The old-taste pastry has flaky crust and mildly-sweet filling with aroma of roasted sesame seeds. This is the traditional taste that many people will go for.
Other than traditional la pia, Chai Huat Heng also has its own self-innovated versions with softer crust, smaller in size but thicker. It is considered a Pontian-specialty. The new-version la pia comes with different fillings — I tried the salty peacake (咸豆沙) and crystal (水晶). The crystal cake has dual layered fillings, consisting of dark red bean paste and candied winter melon, and is mild-sweet. The salty mung bean is mild-savoury — like eating mung bean biscuit (tau sar peah) in a softer pastry crust.
There are sun biscuits (太阳饼) too — although a popular Taiwan biscuit, Chai Huat Heng created the Pontian version with snow-white soft crust and stamped with a red sun pattern. The maltose-filled pastry has a pleasant-light taste and not very sweet.
Chai Huat Heng has a type of biskut wangi (香饼), or heong peah, that is not the beh teh saw (马蹄酥) that we are familiar with. Each short tube contains 5 pieces of biskut wangi. The thin and round biscuit has soft and crumbly crust with very low sweetness and a chewy filling — munching on the biscuit is like eating mochi. The biscuit has short shelf-life and should be consumed within 4 days.
Chai Huat Heng makes so many types of traditional pastries and they are mostly not very sweet — which is the main reason why I always frequent the bakery on every trip to Pontian. It will take me many, many, many more visits to try them all.
Address:
903, Jalan Bakek, Kampung Atap, 82000 Pontian, Johor, Malaysia
Opening Hours:
9am to 8:30pm (Sunday till 7pm) | Daily
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