Radish Cake

Radish Cake from Mandarin Garden Tea House

Those times when I didn’t eat rice and I dined in Chinese dim sum restaurants, I’d eat raddish cake with my dim sum. In Chinese dim sum, it’s Lobak go.

Radish cake is also called turnip cake. It is made of shredded radish (or daikon), rice flour, and some other ingredients such as Chinese ham, dried shrimps, and carrots. It is pan-fried with a thin crust on the outside but soft and tender on the outside. It originated from the Cantonese style of cooking.

Surprisingly, it does not have radish’s bitter taste or bite.

It is commonly served in dim sum and other Chinese restaurants and is served during special Chinese occasions such as the Chinese Lunar New Year. The dim sum restaurants usually serve it with a sweet chili dip or soy sauce. Some eat it with oyster sauce, Hoisin sauce, or other sauces.

The flavor complements the taste of most other dim sum dishes such as siomai or dumplings, taosi pork, and sweet and sour fish. It is also a good carbohydrate or starch substitute.

In Davao City, I usually eat radish cakes at the outlets and branches of the Mandarin Garden Tea House and the Dimsum Diner.