This tasty and flaky pastry is one of the lasting influences of the early Chinese immigrants in our culture. It is made of soft and sweet mung bean paste encrusted in flaky dough, usually served with hot tea during snack time. Over the years alternative fillings and dough types were created to give variations for the well loved hopia.
The most common types of hopia are hopia mungo, hopia baboy and hopia hapon. These pastries can easily be found in your regular neighborhood bakeries and groceries. Some bakeries or foodshops are popular for their delectable hopia like Eng Bee Tin, Polland, Salazar’s, and Lido .
Eng bee tin is best known for their ube or purple yam hopia. They even have ube combos variations that are both interesting and savory like ube langka hopia and ube pastillas hopia. A visit to the Eng Bee Tin store is like stepping into the hopia world where you can find all sorts of hopia from the standard trio of mungo, baboy and hapon to unlikely flavors like pandan, pina and moccachino. They have practically every hopia option for you, either hopia round or diced, flaky or cake-dough, and a wide selection of flavors that even those who are watching their sugar levels can enjoy it with their sugar free version or the hopia mungo lite.
Polland has great tasting hopia baboy while Salazar’s and Lido can vie for the best tasting hopia mungo. You may also try the hopia hapon of Marby’s Bakeshop and Tipas’ Hopia which are tasty, filling and very affordable. Whichever variant of hopia you choose, I hopia love it!
