Honolulu Rose Cake Shop is your stop for creative cakes, pastries

It's time for food to go and serving up all the sweets is Honolulu Rose Cake Shop. Joining us with the details is owner, Selina Pak. Good morning, Selina. Good morning. Thank you for joining us. So excited to chat a little bit. How did you get started with Honolulu Rose Cake Shop? Well, to be honest, when I was 16 years old is when I was like, oh, I really like baking. And then from there, I would do part-time jobs. And my mom and dad saw, oh, she really likes baking. Let's take her to Korea and have like personal lessons. I did that for about two to three months. Came back, worked, and then started doing pop-ups. That's an amazing story. Wow. So really, your Korean heritage and cultural ethnic kind of brought that into your background of baking. I love that. So what do you think is something that's unique from Honolulu Rose Cake Shop? I would say a lot of bakeries do tend to be on the sweeter side. So what I like to do, the sweets I've tasted in Korea were more on the lighter and fluffier and not too sweet side. So that's what I brought back to Hawaii because I've noticed that a lot of people are saying, oh, I think this cake is too sweet or too dense. And so I made, by trial and error, like several different recipes and finally got something down. That's awesome. Like something that's light and fluffy. Amazing. So what do you have here for us then? The cakes look so good. This is the matcha strawberry. I have the mocha cake, strawberry shortcake. And this is the packaging for it. Oh, this is so cute. And it comes in, that's why I'm like, I don't want to eat it. I don't want to touch it because the packaging is so cute. It's sturdy. It's really, it's nice. I like this. So what about these two? You have some more cakes here for us as well. So these are actually cheesecakes. I like to make it in between like a New York style and a Japanese style. So it is still on the denser side, but it's not like too dense, like American dense. Wow, that's so cool. And usually I see the opposite, like either, yes, like New York cheesecake style, super, like you said, dense, or then the Japanese style is very fluffy, very light. So nothing in between. Very unique. I love that. And then what about these over here? They are banana pudding. So over here is the original flavor, ube, and then the cookie butter. Can I try one of them? You can choose whichever. I'll try this banana one. It's so cute, and it's in a little jar, so you could take it to go. You can reuse it. And eat it for breakfast, dessert, pretty much every meal that you could think of. And then what's in the banana pudding? So it has a layer of heavy whipping cream, vanilla wafers, banana, and custard. So good. Thank you. It reminds me of something for school. We used to kind of make this, but this is like way better. Nothing my childhood self could ever do. But I love it. It's very flavorful, very light. And again, it has your own spin on it. That's something that I tasted. It's so good and sweet. Thank you. And then we also have some cookies here that are packaged, and some drinks. So tell me a little bit about those, too. So for the cookies, I have something called a creme brulee cookie. It is basically a half sugar, half butter cookie. I think is it this one right here? Yes, right here. And then it's a layer of cream cheese, and then I squirt sugar on top of it. Oh, wow. Did you torch it? Yeah. Wow, that's so awesome. Multi-talented. OK, and then these ones, I don't want to assume. Is it red velvet? It is red velvet. You got it. Nice. So good. And then what about these drinks up here? They look really refreshing. So I have a lot more drinks in the store. But those are the four I would say are the most popular. This is like a Vietnamese-style iced coffee, but a lot less sweeter. So you won't get like a headache or anything like that. Wow, and are these homemade, too? You make these yourself? My mom makes it. Wow. She helps me. That's so sweet. It's like a family-owned business also. That's awesome. So thank you, Selena. So just to close us off, where can we find you then? What is, I know you have like a rolling menu. So what do we have on the menu now? And then where can we find you in person? You can find me at 212 Merchant Street, Unit 9. I'm kind of hidden inside a hallway. But it's like a food corner. So it's pretty fun to go through. OK. And then I sometimes also do pop-up events. So if you follow my Instagram, you can actually find me there, too. Awesome. And then what was your Instagram for our viewers that are interested? At Honolulu Rose Cake Shop. Perfect. Easy, simple, beautiful. We have some of your photos here on the screen. Because besides coming to the bakery, you can also order custom cakes. Yes. And things, too. So everything looks so fabulous. Thank you so much, Selena, for joining us this morning. Perfect. Coming up, more people are turning