GEORGE TOWN, Jan 3 — The air was filled with the smell of something spicy, sweet and yet savoury as workers busily mixed, rolled and sliced thin pieces of rectangular-shaped biscuits in a shophouse along Cintra Street.
The plainly-decorated shop with its trays of freshly-baked traditional biscuits and stacks of a variety of packaged biscuits is not particularly famous or well-known but it has survived World War II and modernisation.
Ng Kee Cake Shop opened its doors in 1928 selling only a few types of biscuits particularly the Cantonese kah lui peng; pink and yellow biscuits with lotus paste filling traditionally used as gifts in Chinese weddings.
“We were known for our kah lui peng at that time before my grandfather introduced other biscuits using his own recipes, such as our ham chi soe,” Loh Mun Loong, the current owner, said.
The ham chi soe biscuits, called pepper biscuits, is actually a spiced-up variation of the famed Kampar chicken biscuits or kai chai peng.
Instead of making kai chai peng, Loh said his grandfather wanted to introduce something different so he came up with his own version and named it ham chi soe.
“I asked him what the name meant and he said it doesn’t have any particular meaning, he just wanted to name it something to make it his own brand,” Loh, 47, said.
The ham chi soe only has the slightest resemblance to the kai chai peng due to the use of five spice in its ingredients and its thin crunchiness but that’s where the similarities end.
The ham chi soe is thinly sliced so it is crispy and biting into it releases a burst of five spices mingled with pepper for a fragrant and yet fiery taste.
“It is different from the kai chai peng because it doesn’t have meat in it, the traditional kai chai peng has bits of seasoned pork in it,” he said.
He said that since his grandfather introduced pepper biscuits, it became one of the shop’s signature items other than its wedding biscuits.
“My grandfather used to slice those biscuits by hand which is very tedious so about 30 years ago, he went to Japan and bought a machine to do the slicing,” he said.
Loh is the third generation owner and he is now grooming his 20-year-old daughter to take over the business in future.
Despite being known for its pepper biscuits, which is now widely distributed at supermarkets and other retail shops, Loh said they are still struggling to stay afloat.
“If we only concentrate on the tourist and local market, we won’t be able to survive because costs are higher now, cutting into our profits year after year,” he said.
Now, the traditional shop has plans to expand its business and try to penetrate the export market, particularly Hong Kong, China and Singapore.
He will open a new factory sometime in the middle of next year to manufacture a variety of biscuits for export.
“If we don’t start exporting, we may not be able to keep the shop going because there are bigger markets outside the country,” he said.
The shop’s small traditional bakery, where most of the baking is done by Loh and his small team of workers, will be maintained as it is to produce biscuits the traditional style for Penang.
“We will still keep with our tradition of making biscuits the way my grandfather did here in this shop because it is our heritage and my grandfather’s legacy that we must keep alive,” he said.
Ng Kee Cake Shop offers a wide variety of traditional baked pastries other than the pepper biscuits such as egg tarts, coconut tarts, tau sar pneah and also mooncakes during the mooncake festival.
Ng Kee Cake Shop
61, Cintra Street, George Town
Tel: 04-2612229
Time: 9am-9pm
