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'We like to introduce new products with a Taiwanese taste,' Joy Kao says of her baked goods. Pictured here are the Macadamia, left, and a mixed fruit cake.

No more tears: Wa Wa offers a unique form of baked goods

By Steve Enders

While Chinese lunch and dinner cuisine is as popular in the United States as burgers and fries, Chinese breakfast and dessert fare remains a virtual unknown.

Producing breads and rolls with a Taiwanese flair, Joy Kao's Cupertino-based Wa Wa Bakery serves as a reminder that the Chinese can whip up a mean breakfast or dessert with a flavor that is authentically Eastern.

In the plaza on the corner of Wolfe Road and Homestead Avenue, Wa Wa is a bright new store surrounded by other Chinese establishments.

As its name suggests, Wa Wa is named after a crying baby, and the sign above the bakery shows a diaper-clad infant with tears raining from its eyes.

Inside, Mandarin is the conversational language behind counters displaying tasty desserts that sport a European look, as well as rolls, cookies, breads and muffins that are a mixture of Eastern tradition and Western fare.

"We have bakers from Taiwan," says Kao. "We like to introduce new products with a Taiwanese taste."

Kao adds that her brother-in-law is a professionally trained European chef. That would make sense, since many of the cakes inside are topped with fruit and glazes that look distinctively European.

But what makes a Taiwanese dessert different from the others?

She explains, "It just has different kinds of feelings.

"The cake is lighter. It has all the basics but is just different."

Kao says her purpose in business is to provide baked goods from a people's homeland and to give those that have never been to Taiwan a taste of what the bakeries are like there.

Born and raised in Taiwan, Kao moved to the United States in 1981 with her husband. His family owned a bakery in Taiwan for more than 50 years. Now, she says, the location the store has been in since August is beginning to attract a base of regular customers.

Kao says, "We definitely need more traffic. We only have one-half to one-third occupancy."

She says that once the plaza gets more established, more customers will appear.

Wa Wa offers a full range of Taiwanese, European and American-style baked goods, including wedding and birthday cakes, breads, rolls, buns and cookies. Coffee, tea, sodas and juices are also available.

Wa Wa, at 10961 N. Wolfe Road, is open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. seven days a week.

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This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, January 14, 1998.
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