TAIWAN 🇹🇼
As Flushing continues to fill up with more and more rich young mainlanders, they also bring with them their cosmopolitan appetites and desires for regional specialties. The latest business to fill a specific niche is Happy Wheelie, specializing in a Japanese dessert called imagawayaki that has been adapted and popularized in Taiwan as "red bean cake" (alluding to its original and most popular ingredient) or in Taipei as a "car wheel cake."
To find this stall, you will have to walk to the back of the Landmark Quest Mall, pushing past the mob in front of Joe's Steam Rice Roll, the Hong Kong specialist that is the narrow shopping center's biggest draw.
Without a ton of space to linger, it is easy to get hypnotized by the wheel cake making and stand right in the way of other folks trying to get back and forth. The talented chef will fill one hole in the special pan with batter, letting it cook a bit before adding the toppings of your choice. A second hole will be filled and the first will be delicately flipped over onto it. After the second half is done cooking, the cake can be removed and enjoyed hot.
In addition to red bean, they also have "cream" which is like a vanilla custard, taro, Oreo, dried radish, black sesame, and some combinations of these ingredients and cream. An order of 2 wheel cakes costs $5 no matter which options are picked, and takes around 3-5 minutes to prepare.
The red bean option (below) is probably the least sweet of the bunch and the most filling due to its density. If you are using this to calm a hunger that has crept up many hours before dinner, this is probably your best option. You can also combine the red bean with cream if desired, the latter of which does have a sweetness to it that should create a good mix.
The favorite on this day was the black sesame with cream combo (below), which satisfied on all fronts. Looking forward to trying some of the other options, but have a feeling that returning to this will always be a good choice.
Now that you have had your dessert, maybe you can pick up one of those rice rolls on the way out as well.
This is your entrance from Roosevelt Avenue.
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