When Kevin Ho took over the original Hoa Hung Tofu business in Belmore 15 years ago, he knew nothing about making tofu. At the time, the business wasn’t turning a profit, but Ho saw the potential to turn it into something big.
With a background in finance and a determination to escape the corporate rat race, Ho – a vegetarian – wanted to impress his two young daughters with delicious tofu. He travelled across Asia – mostly Vietnam and Japan – to learn the best methods of handcrafting the centuries-old protein the traditional way. It took him seven years to perfect the recipe.
“He learned from a lot of tofu masters – not manufacturers, but those who handmade tofu the ancient way,” Alex Ly, Ho’s cousin, tells Broadsheet. “He really learned the craft, gathered all this information, and figured out his own formula. While it took a while, it is what is today [because of it].” (Ly also left the corporate life behind, joining the family business five years ago.)
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SIGN UP“The other main reason why he did this is because tofu has a bad stigma. People hear ‘tofu’ and think ‘yuck’. That’s because a lot of people don’t make tofu the ancient way.”
So, what exactly counts as good tofu? “It sounds cliche, but it comes from the heart,” Ly says “A lot of people use machines and automate the process. But to make good tofu, you feel when the curds are perfect. You just have to know by touch. That’s where the texture and flavour comes from. We really want to fall back on the ancient way of making good tofu, which is almost gone now. It’s still done in parts of Asia, but it’s very rare.”
The entire Hoa Hung Tofu production happens out the back of the pair of shopfronts – the original store in Belmore and the newer store in Cabramatta, which is nearly three times the size.
During Broadsheet’s visit to the Cabramatta space, Ly shows off the wet, steamy factory floor where soybeans from the Atherton Tablelands (near Cairns) are soaked overnight in giant vats before they’re drained, ground into a paste, filtered to remove the okara (soybean pulp), then transferred into another tank for pressure cooking.
“This turns the mixture into really hot soy milk, which then goes into another tank where the hand-mixing process begins. From the point the milk is cooked, everything is done by hand – no machine mixes. It’s made by hand until it becomes the final product.”
There’s one staff member stationed at the deep fryer, freshly frying tofu to send out to the shopfront, while trays of pressed tofu are sat ready in trolleys. Despite the laborious process, it only takes 15 to 20 minutes from grinding to the final product.
“We call ourselves tofu artisans because we really put everything into making our products,” Ly says.
Originally, the family-run business only produced tofu, soy milk and tofu pudding. Now, with expanded production capabilities thanks to the addition of Cabramatta, there are flavoured soy milks – including pandan, match, guava, honeydew and passionfruit – yoghurt, pandan pudding and soy ice-cream.
“We were going to bring the same concept from Belmore to Cabramatta, but then we realised, soybean is the king of beans. Why only make tofu alone? We want to show off the full potential of soybeans.”
While Ly shies away from revealing exactly how much tofu Hoa Hung produces, he mentions that, in addition to selling directly to customers, the business also supplies to a number of grocery stores, including Thai Kee IGA, and restaurants like Thai Pothong, Thairiffic, Iku and Bun Me.
“Because people are buying more tofu now, the quantity is increasing, so there’s almost no choice [but] to use machines. But we’ve figured out how to keep that hands-on process while still making enough.”
Hoa Hung Tofu Cabramatta
42 John Street, Cabramatta
Hours:
Mon to Wed 7am–7.30pm
Thu 6am–7.30pm
Fri to Sun 7am–7.30pm