‘A little bit of home’: Toronto businesses serve up traditional Lunar New Year treats

Lunar New Year typically sees millions of people going home to celebrate with family in what may be called the world’s largest temporary migration of the year.

With COVID-19 putting a damper on travel plans once again, many will miss out on the traditional ceremonies, celebrations and food, especially those who have no close family in Canada.

Two Toronto businesses are collaborating to serve up a taste of home for those who celebrate as well as the wider community, along with generous helpings of nostalgia.

Wai Tack Kee

For 17 years, Wai Tack Kee bakery has been supplying Toronto with traditional Chinese snacks through a number of Asian grocery stores.

Working out of their production facility in Scarborough, founder Joe Tam combines his mother’s traditional recipes with his culinary training from Hong Kong Polytechnic, hand making treats that hold special meaning to their customers.

Joe’s daughter Audrey explains that the family had lived in Toronto for a few years in the 1980s and returned to Hong Kong. When they came back to Toronto, settling back in was a challenge, but her father was always an entrepreneur and knew he wanted to work for himself.

With some encouragement from his friends, he began putting his baking expertise to use.

“His friends told him that ‘hey there’s actually a lack of really good traditional Chinese snacks [in Toronto]’, especially for seasonal festivals like mid-Autumn and Lunar New Year,” says Audrey. “So that’s really how the company began.”

She explains that the journey began with a single traditional snack — crispy taro balls — and the product line soon expanded to 25 seasonal snacks. After gaining popularity among friends and family, they were able to tie up with Asian supermarkets for distribution.

“My dad wants to give everyone within the community a large range of choices so that they get to pick and select all their favourite nostalgic Lunar New Year snacks,” says Audrey.

Joe uses traditional recipes passed down to him by his mother, Wai, who the company is partially named after. Many of his own recipes are also inspired by her. Audrey says he still uses traditional methods and works slowly, in small batches to ensure everything meets his high standards.

“It really continues on a family tradition and a family legacy,” she says.

During Lunar New Year, they offer limited edition treats specific to the festival, each with a special meaning:

• Candied walnuts – wealth and intelligence
• Crispy taro balls – happiness
• Sweet dumplings – pocket full of money
• Tofu crisps – wealth
• Taro thins – rising fortune
• Lotus blossom cookies – prosperity
• Pineapple shortcake – wealth and prosperity

Audrey says they hope the traditional snacks will help people reconnect with home even while away from it, during a special time of year.

“The customers that we have [typically had] … are the older generation that had these treats growing up and when they see it they get a nostalgic feeling … it really brings them a lot of joy, because these celebration treats are really specific to the season. You eat them when you’re gathering with family and friends,” explains Audrey. “It’s really exciting to see our snacks bring back those happy memories, especially during the pandemic when people are not able to celebrate physically with their family.”

At the start of the pandemic, Wai Tack Kee began connecting directly with their customers, offering a pickup-only option from their bakery, which is not a retail location. Audrey says her dad also requested she create a website and Instagram account to connect to a younger demographic and the response has been both overwhelming and heartwarming.

“We’ve gotten a lot of messages saying how our treats really continue on the legacy of tradition within Toronto,” she says. “We heard so many amazing stories that really help inspire my dad to continue to make these traditional Chinese snacks.”

Wai Tack Kee snacks have thus far not been available to downtown dwellers, but after teaming up with Little Italy cheese boutique Kiss My Pans, they’ve made their way into the core.

Kiss My Pans

Co-founders of cheese boutique Kiss My Pans, Jeanne Chai and David Burga, have wanted to collaborate with Wai Tack Kee ever since they first opened their doors last year.

David is Peruvian from Canada and Jeanne is Chinese, originally from Singapore. After meeting in Toronto, the couple lived in Singapore for 12 years, with Jeanne specializing in cheese and charcuterie boards while David worked with Universal Studios in retail, tourism and food operations there.

David explains that when the pandemic hit, they chose to return to Canada in 2020. Combining their professional strengths, they set up a storefront of their own in June, 2021 — not only offering cheese and other charcuterie essentials for sale, but creating special platters and boxes for various occasions and conducting workshops as well.

Jeanne says it took some convincing for Audrey and her dad Joe to agree to a collaboration. Audrey says her dad is extremely particular about quality and they wanted to be absolutely certain that it was the right fit for them.

After a visit to the store and much back and forth, Wai Tack Kee agreed to supply Kiss My Pans with their products, partly because Jeanne discovered that some of their traditional treats are a surprisingly pleasing compliment to some cheeses.

“People don’t naturally think about that, but I have discovered that they pair really well,” she explains.

“It’s just exciting to see people pair some of our traditional snacks with something that’s a little bit unexpected, just like all of the international flavours of Toronto,” adds Audrey.

For Lunar New Year, Jeanne decided to use her expertise and put together platters or gift sets incorporating Wai Tack Kee snacks.

Putting her own spin on the gift basket concept, Jeanne filled hand painted tingkats or traditional Asian tiered lunch boxes with the traditional treats.

“Many parts of Asia use these … and I thought they would make really great gifts,” she says. “Because of the pandemic, a lot of people haven’t been able to get home or they’re trying to stay away from their families because they don’t want to risk infection. You can now send these to your family and say ‘we’re thinking about you’.”

Chai adds she wanted to “bring a little bit of home” to those who celebrate the festival, as well as introduce other Torontonians to the foods that mean so much to her.

Audrey said they were thrilled with the display Jeanne set up and happy to see the juxtaposition of their traditional foods against the backdrop of a cheese boutique in Little Italy.

“We are so honoured to partner with another local company so there’s actually a location for downtown customers to be able to get our snacks,” she says.

Community connections

Kiss My Pans has been in business in the Little Italy area for less than a year, but the owners are eager to connect with other local entrepreneurs and the community they serve.

Jeanne says she is a firm believer in working with other small businesses and “lifting each other up.” Along with Wai Tack Kee goods, the shop often carries items from other small operations like pie purveyors New Pie Co., soup sommeliers Lunchers, and maple syrup masters Wabanaki.

They’ve also managed to make a significant community connection in a short time, which helped them through a difficult situation during the holiday season last year.

As it was their first Christmas in business, David explains they weren’t quite sure what to expect.

“All the cheese suppliers were giving us their best advice of how to plan,” he says. “It’s usually about two or three times more sales in December … so we did have three times more … and by mid-December, it was a bit scary. We didn’t know what to do with so much cheese because the business wasn’t coming.”

Jeanne turned to social media and online community groups to get the word out about their “$20,000 cheese problem” and Burga says the community truly rallied behind them.

“They were kicking through the door [saying] ‘we heard there’s a cheese emergency’ … they came in so motivated to help us out,” he said.

“It’s very humbling that we can share our passion for food and give it to my hometown…we hope to do it for many years to come.”