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ALERT JANUARY 2014:
Mon Hei and neighboring businesses are currently closed due to massive damage caused by a 12/24/13 fire on the upper floors of the bakery building.
Chinese / Hong Kong style bakery
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669 S King St International District
206 / 624-4156 website
-closed Tuesdays
-signs in Chinese, English, Vietnamese
Interview with manager, Annie Fok
The warm welcome you get at the Mon Hei Bakery is likely to come from this woman:
“My name is Annie, last name is Fok. I just working here with my husband Robin, he is the baker of this bakery.”
Mon Hei opened back in 1979.
“The first generation is my parents.”
At that time, Seattle had a large Chinese community, but no Chinese bakery. The owners of the building sensed an opportunity.
“Because there is no Chinese pastry at this time, and that’s why the owner, they think that it will be maybe a very good to start business on bakery.
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| coconut tart |
“They have Filipino pastry, and also they have French, they have traditional Chinese, and they have those called ‘American’ and ‘Chinese’. So they mostly a baker over there in Hong Kong, they learn about a little bit of everything on that.”
Mon Hei’s founders met Annie’s dad at a Hong Kong pastry school.
“They like my dad, that's why he asked my dad whether you'd like to go to Seattle, start a new bakery for us.”
It turned out the owners had picked up on a real hunger within the community.
“I heard from my folks, they said that when the bakery is opened, there is a long line standing out and then you cannot do [pointing] ‘I want that, I want that,’ you had to get the number! They served by number!
“And also at the first time, even those, like, American people, they haven’t tried out these Chinese pastry: every people come here to buy that.”
Two years after Mon Hei opened, Annie came over to join her parents.
“At that time I am not working in this bakery; only my folks they working here. But after 10 or 12 years, my dad, he have to retire, and at that time he told my husband to learn about something like that so he can keep going and working in this bakery.”
Were they prepared for that transition?
“Not at all! I just working in a bank. We both working in a bank! At that time you cannot think about how hard is this work!
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| winter melon crisp or "wife cake" |
“Mostly we start around 5:30 in the morning and the bakery closes around 6 o'clock. But after we close we still have side job to prepare for the next day.
“Some of the product, when we sold out, then we try to--if it is not too late--we try to make another one so that every time you come here you see us bring over some fresh stuff; this is the reason.”
Baking is always hard work, but Annie and Robin face an added challenge today that Mon Hei just didn’t have in 1979: competition.
“When they start the first one, then every people saw that the business is really good, then they have the other one. Right now is almost nine of those Chinese bakery in Chinatown. Before, this one is the only one.”
One thing that distinguishes Mon Hei is a tradition that started with Annie’s dad. Mooncakes are dense pastries filled with egg yolks and bean or lotus paste, that are eaten to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival.
“Our bakery is the only one to carry the moon cake all the time, all year round. Right here--you know, before, not right now but before--the Chinese people they don’t have that much Chinese pastry to eat. They have the homesick about the mooncake, about the other traditional Chinese pastry; they always want to have those then. It is not that hard to make the mooncake. Just you make a little bit for the people they want to, you will feel very happy on that."
Other top sellers include the winter melon crisp (also known as “wife cake”), and the pineapple bun, a lightly sweet unfilled bun with a crispy top.
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| cocktail bun |
“Well, usually the people when I tell them the filling is the creamy style coconut inside they say that, ‘Oh, I don’t want coconut, I don’t like coconut.’ I say, ‘No, you try it out: our coconut, when you taste it, it doesn’t taste like coconut.’ The taste is very light, very soft. So when they buy it and they taste it they say that, Oh, forget the coconut: I like eat it all!”
From her vantage point behind the counter, Annie tries to put herself in the shoes of a first-time visitor.
“Some people, the first time they come to a new place, they want to try something out, some people they very shy to ask you, 'What’s that? What’s that?'”
To make customers feel more comfortable, Mon Hei’s products are clearly labeled in Chinese, English, and--as of two years ago--Vietnamese.
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| egg tart |
If customers want more than a couple of pieces, their assortment will be packed in a cheerful pink box.
“We always use the pink boxes. Some of the bakery they like to use the white box, but mostly all my customer is the Asian people. Pink and red is mean happy. They like to use that kind of color, so I like to use the pink box for them.”
Happiness is pretty much Mon Hei’s motto.
“The ‘mon’ is means ‘thousand’, the letter of ‘thousand’. The ‘hei’ is mean ‘happiness’. When you come here to buy something, you are very joyful, you enjoy the food. That is the original meaning for those owners, they try to get this Chinese name. We just carry the name on, because the name is very good!”
