Taiwanese Wheel Cake in Greenwich Village – NYC

Have you ever had taiyaki, imagawayaki, obanyaki, chelun bing, or bungobbang? Japanese in origin, the cake has different names depending on the region and shape. The fish shaped version is called taiyaki in Japan and bungobbang (붕어빵) in Korea, and the circular shape goes by imagawayaki or obanyaki in Japan and chelun bing or wheel cake in Taiwan. Either way, they’re all delicious. Imagine a small cake made with pancake batter, stuffed with whatever you heart desires, but most typically with custard or sweet red bean paste.

Catmint Wheel Cake, owned by a young couple who met at Bing, makes Taiwanese wheel cakes with quality housemade ingredients in an assortment of interesting flavors.

Banana chocolate has chocolate in the batter and inside as well, in addition to a slice of banana. This was tasty, but I could have used more filling that was a tad sweeter.

Custard & bubble is your more typical custard obanyaki filled with tapioca pearls. I feel like the last decade was all about boba, and I’m all about it. Let’s keep it going in 2020! The bubbles were warm, but still had some chew, which I liked a lot. Overall, the cake itself could have been hotter, and the outside slightly more crisp, but that’s my preference.

I also had matcha latte since they had combo deal: 2 wheel cakes and a tea for $11.50. The matcha latte was nice and bonus points for some cute latte art.

Catmint Wheel Cake is temporarily closed and will reopen January 22. If you’re in the area, it’s worth checking out.

Catmint Wheel Cake
124 Macdougal Street
New York, NY 10012 (map)

Visit Rating: 3.5/5 stars
Pro Tip: Get the 2 wheel cake and tea combo. 1 cake is small and you’ll want another one anyway. Highly recommend the custard & bubble as one of the cake choices!