It took only a second for Mei Fang, co-owner of the popular Sing Cheong Yuan Bakery in Chinatown, to decide to take over Kaimuki’s Crack Seed Store when she heard its longtime owner was retiring in December.
She’s been a fan for years of the beloved snack store’s Icee frozen drink, garnished with a few scoops of li hing mui sauce, ever since her son Nicholas was waist-high. She’d always finish the leftover drink from his cup.
“It’s so good!” she said, liking it because it quenches her thirst and has an “interesting sweet, sour, salty flavor.” Fang said the store sells about 100 of the drinks a day, priced at $2.45 to $4.35, depending on size.
So when she heard through a mutual friend in November that “Uncle” Kon Ping Young wanted to sell his store, “I only needed one second to decide, because I wanted to buy the Icee and the rock salt plum. I liked the taste and I know he has a lot of customers.”
Despite her familiarity with the shop, and although Fang and her husband, Wesley, have lived in Hawaii for over 20 years, she’d never actually been to Young’s store, a neighborhood institution for 41 years. While she was busy working, her brother or sister would take all the kids there after school or the movies.
Fang didn’t know exactly what an Icee was, or that the drink is served frozen — until Young showed her how to work the machine, she said, laughing. The shop’s version comes with one li hing mui seed in the bottom of each cup, with some of the juice the seeds have been soaking in, made fresh daily. None of that powdered li-hing stuff.
Fang plans to bring some items from Sing Cheong bakery to the Kaimuki shop and has already stocked several Chinese New Year items, but she said she intends to keep the traditional favorites that have drawn customers for all these years.
In about two months, she’ll renovate the small space to accommodate some of the bakery’s specialty dim sum items, cookies and peanut candy. For now, she’s brought over some gau, a traditional Chinese sticky pudding, and sugared fruit and vegetables (symbolizing good luck) to celebrate the Year of the Rat, which begins Saturday.
“I try to do my best to keep the memory (of the store under Young), but I need to do some renovation,” she said.
Two former Sing Cheong workers have joined her at the tiny Kaimuki store, and she said it’s been easy for them to learn the trade. The shop draws constant foot traffic and customers with dedicated sweet tooths.
Sing Cheong bakery dishes out a wider variety of Chinese preserved fruit and other candies, cookies, cakes, and a range of manapua and savory items. Crack Seed carries more local, multi- ethnic treats, like li hing mui and other kinds of preserved plum or fruit seeds; mochi crunch and Japanese snacks; gummy candies and of course, Icee in a variety of flavors and combos.
Prices will remain the same at the Crack Seed Store, averaging $12 to $26 a pound or fractions thereof for the preserved seeds — comparable in cost to the bakery’s preserved fruit.
Cheong Sing imports more than 20 kinds of dried fruit from Asian countries, but bakery staffers mix their own wet preserves, particularly for local fruits like lychee, pickled mango, pickled ginger, and lemons seasoned with salt or honey. Fang will be adding the salty lemon to the Crack Seed Store.
Fang said she and Young have shared their recipes and methods of mixing wet preserves, but if she starts selling her version of a recipe, it will be clearly marked, so customers can choose between old and new items.
Sing Cheong’s regular customers, in the meantime, have been rejoicing at the convenience of a second location, as they can skip the drive to Chinatown and pick up some of their bakery favorites in Kaimuki.
Fang said more and more people are calling her, asking to pick up their holiday gau at the Crack Seed Store, and have asked if she will carry more bakery items. (Maybe they’ll start ordering the Icee.)
CRACK SEED STORE
1156 Koko Head Ave.; 737-1022
Open 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays, 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sundays
