Friday, May 25, 2012

Dragon Whiskers Candy

We usually avoid Hawaii Supermarket in San Gabriel because the crazy busy parking lot is hell. But on one recent Saturday, we decided to brave the insanity so we could visit Alex Goh's dragon whiskers candy cart. That's one of the nice things about Hawaii Supermarket, the small line of street-food vendors outside the entrance. They make the food right there so the confections are super fresh.

What's dragon whiskers candy? A wonderful, delicate sweet made from honey. As you'll see in the video I found on YouTube, the honey is stretched into hundreds of thin strings until it really does look like "dragon whiskers". It's then stuffed with things like peanuts or coconut. Alex even did a live demonstration for us. It was unbelievable the way he turned a lump of cooked honey into "dragon whiskers", all in about sixty seconds. Now that's magic. Alex told us that he cooks the honey for something like eight hours in preparation for the whiskers. Sadly, very few people still make the candy this way. Today's young people just find the work too tedious.



I think Alex is at Hawaii Supermarket on most weekends. Here's the address.

Hawaii Supermarket 
120 E Valley Blvd
San Gabriel, CA