Serangoon Gardens Bakery and Confectionary: Good old Curry Buns!

Luncheon Meat Buns

As with many things in life, the simple things are often the best. When it comes to soft buns, we Singaporeans have been spoilt for choice since Breadtalk started the trend of the fancy soft buns years ago. Before that, we were all quite happy with our curry buns, hot dog buns, coconut buns and luncheon meat buns. Since then, we now have buns with seaweed, pork floss, walnuts and all sorts of exotic ingredients, a lot of which you will never come across in your friendly neighbourhood Aunty Lucy supermarket.(NTUC)

But you know, often I buy these fancy buns only to find that it looked better than it actually tastes. Just last week I discovered that my favourite Japanese Bakery chain, Yamazaki has now opened a store in Tampines One. I used to buy my breads from Yamazaki when I was living in Thailand and they have a big round soft bun which they slice up which was fantastic. Unfortunately they don't have this in Singapore. So I ended up buying some fancy apple and custard bun that cost $2. I brought it home and prepared my Teh Si Siu Dai with much anticipation only to find that the out of the $2 spent, $1.50 accounted for visual appeal. After discounting 30 cents for satiety, I think I only derived 20 cents of gustatory satisfaction. Aiyah, KFC -- Thailand better, Yamazaki -- Thailand also better. What is wrong with our franchise managers here?


Ham and Cheese Buns

Anyway, back to the simple soft bun. There is no secret to a satisfying soft bun experience. The buns have to be warm, velvety soft and sweet. When that is the case, a simple slice of Luncheon meat is all you need to put you into bread heaven. OK, that is a little too simple. You also need a cup of hot Teh Si or Kopi Si depending on your preference.


Curry Buns

There is no fancy stuff here at this traditional bakery which has been around for the last 30 years. You are still going to find your classic curry buns, red bean buns and sausage buns, not to mention custard puffs. Of special mention are the curry buns which are really quite generously packed with potato curry. They are all satisfyingly good and the continuous queue of people ensures that the buns are always fresh out of the oven and warm! The ham and cheese is another hot favourite here, but for me I can just buy a couple of luncheon meat buns and be really happy. Best of all they are all less than a dollar each. 4.25/5

Conclusion

At the end of the day, you don't really need some fancy name and ingredients to have a great bun experience. Give me a luncheon meat bun anyday but make sure its hot out of the oven! Agree?

Serangoon Garden Bakery & Confectionary
Serangoon Garden Way FC
Stall 45
Opened for breakfast till evenings or until sold out

....Read more!

Barcook Bakery: Ooooh so soft and silky, but don't fight ok?

Cheese and Raisin Bread $1.30 ea

In case you still haven't heard, there's this place at Hong Lim Centre that sells really soft and irresistable bread which sells out everytime a new tray comes out of the oven. Like every other new pastry fad that hit Singapore, this stall is attracting long queues of people waiting impatiently for a bite of their buns. Such queues are a real hotbed for fights and quarrels to erupt.

Oh yeah, we Singaporeans love to queue and it is precisely because we love to queue that fights can sometimes occur. When you go to a place where there is no culture of queuing, everyone just jostle and push to get to the front, buy their thing and go away. I saw this incredible scene on TV once, I think it was in India, where the ticketing counter is just a little hole in the wall for people to stick their hand in with the money, grab their tickets and go off to celebrate the fact that they have managed to buy some tickets. I think that such places ironically have less fights than places like Singapore where there is a strong queuing culture.

While I can't say categorically that a fight had actually broken out at Barcook Bakery, I do have first hand information that some of our makan kakis who had gone down there did get themselves involved in some less than cordial verbal exchanges with the staff of the bakery. It was something to do with someone behind the queue being served ahead of someone in front of the queue. Thankfully fights don't actually break out all that often given that all of us would somehow be in a queue somewhere in any given week. Aside from being affected by those Courtesy Campaigns (I can still remember the jingles), I think a lot has to do with the fact that Singaporeans are not as verbal as say, the Americans or Australians. So a lot of the time we would rather just keep quiet rather than speaking out should we happen to see someone cut the queue. So actually fights don't actually break out all that often and when it does, it gets reported in the New Paper.



Anyway, I managed to get to the front of the queue without incident and lucky for me, there was a tray of the famed Cheese and Raisin Buns which just came out of the oven. So I quickly bought a few and took a photo of a tray of the buns above. Believe me, a tray full of the buns is not a very common sight.

One of the reasons for the perpetual queue, aside from the fact that the buns are absolutely delectable when they are fresh out of the oven, is that all the bread here is made with the Sponge and Dough method which is a technique of baking sweet dough buns which takes more time than the normal sweet dough buns. Essentially, the Sponge and Dough technique is a two step process where the dough is allowed a first rise, followed by a second step where the rest of the ingredients are added, followed by a second rise. The result is a sweet dough with a silky soft texture. This technique is no big secret but there are few bakeries which will bake all their breads this way because it is very time consuming.

The Cheese and Raisin buns are one of the best sweet dough buns I have come across. The texture is very good and their creamed cheese filling is generous and creamy but not overly jialak. When eaten fresh out from the oven, it must be one of the most shiok things you can get your hands on for around a dollar. 4.5/5

Conclusion

As they say, "all good things come to those who wait" (no idea where that phrase came from). So if you are willing to wait in the queue for a while, you will be rewarded with a very nice treat for afternoon tea indeed! But remember to be patient, take it easy and don't fight, ok?

Barcook Bakery
531 Upper Cross Street
#01-54 Hong Lim Complex
Singapore 050531
65336588
Mon-Fri: 8am - 6pm
Sat-Sun: 8am - 4pm

....Read more!

Galicier Confectionery: Oh Ondeh Ondeh!

With smart, iwatch_ueat and damien


This is my first visit to this Confectionery and I felt like I was a kid again at a toy store. Almost everything here is so delectable that I felt I wanted to buy the whole shop!

First up was the Kueh Dah Dah which Damien highly recommended. The big difference here is that the coconut filling here is white in colour instead of the usual brown. Each mouthful was a burst of juicy coconutty goodness. Very different from your usual Kueh Dah Dah. 4.25/5



The sweet tapioca kueh was fantastic and probably the best I have eaten. The sugar they use somehow has an uplifting zest to it that makes it different from a lot of others. If you like tapioca kueh, this one you must try. 4.5/5


Ondeh Ondeh 60 cents each

The Ondeh Ondeh here is is also exceptionally good. The skin is made from sweet potato and is super soft and chewy. Careful when you bite into it, because the gula melaka is bound to drip down your chin! Beautiful, wonderful, gula-full. 4.5/5


Ladies Fingers $1 each

I don't think I would like to meet the lady whom they modeled this confectionery after. Judging from its size, shw would have to be a giant with hair on the chest! Calling them ladies' finger might be a misnomer, but they were excellent. Supersoft but chewy dough with a thin layer of peanut butter on the inside, they go very well with that cup of Teh Tarik! 4.25/5

Conclusion

Make sure you set aside a budget when you step into this stall because you too will be tempted to buy up the whole shop!

Galicier Confectionery
Blk 55 Tiong Bahru Road
#01-39
10am to 9pm Daily
Recommended by Damien

....Read more!

Sofra Turkish Cafe and Restaurant: At last! A Decent Donar Kebab!

One of the things I must always have whenever I back to my family home in Sydney is to have a Donar Kebab. You can get one at almost every street corner and most of them have quite a decent tasting Donar Kebab. The very very best one I ever had was in a little Turkish/Middle Eastern enclave in the town of Auburn where I spent 3 months working in Auburn Hospital A&E. There is nothing quite like a Donar or a Chicken Kebab after a hectic 8 hour shift pretending to be as debonair as George Clooney (ER). They also had a killer Turkish Pide (Pizza) with spicy sausage and egg which was a Holy Grail experience.

Unfortunately, the standards of the Donar Kebab in Singapore is quite appalling and I have yet to taste one that is even half the standard of the ones in Auburn. That is until now.


Sesame Bread $2.80 with Hommus $3.60

The starter was a promising sign of things to come as we were greeted with this attractively enticing sesame bread which was served with a Hommus dip. One thing that I abolutely love is freshly baked bread with Hommus. It is one of those purely vegetarian meals that I can have without feeling that some animal must die to satisfy the carnivore in me. Give me some freshly baked bread, Hommus and some grilled vegetables and I will be quite happy not to shed blood.

The Hommus here is just about the best I have ever tasted. It was creamy and nutty with just the right balance of zest. I never liked Hommus with too much lemon juice. For me, there should only be enough tang to get your salivary glands working but not so much that you can taste the lemon juice. This is one Hommus that you can really appreciate the beany flavour of the chickpea. Fantastic with the warm sesame bread. 4.5/5


Chef's Kebab Plate: $15.90

Of all the meats in the Chef's plate, the Donar Kebab was the most outstanding. They have a mix of beef and lamb in the Donar kebab and you can really taste the lamby flavour in the sliced meat. The meat had that great "Middle Eastern" spice quality about it that made it really addictive. The rest of the platter was decent but I would gladly trade in the rest of the meats for the Donar Kebab. 4.5/5 for the Donar and 4/5 for the chicken and minced meat.


Pide $8.90

The Turkish Pide was the only real let down that day. The pizza base was far from the chewy and fragrant bread that I was accustomed to and the flavour of the topping was too localised that it lacked that Middle Eastern Spice Ooommph. Apart from its unique shape, one could mistaken it for a run of the mill phone order pizza. 3.5/5

Conclusion

Even though it isn't as good as the Middle Eastern food I had in Auburn, it is closer than anything I have had in Singapore so far. Not everything is great but some items do stand out. When I go back, I would just order the Donar Kebab set, Sesame bread and Hommus dip. That would really make my day.

Sofra Turkish Cafe and Restaurant
100 Beach Road
#02-42/44
Shaw Tower (Prince and Jade)

....Read more!

Jie Bakery & Confectionery: Nostalgia is a Loaf of Sliced Bread

I just couldn't help taking pictures of these traditional loaves of bread which were the bread we used to have before the advent of "Gardenia" bread. I still remember standing at the Kek Huay Tiam (Grocery Shop) while the lady sliced the load of bread for me. These were the days when grocery shops still grated coconuts on the spot and the money was kept in a plastic bucket that was hung off the ceiling.

The way I see it, there are two things that we use these loaves for which cannot be replaced by the square loaves. The first is to make Kaya Toast and the second is for wrapping ice cream. Somehow using "Gardenia" just doesn't seem right for these two things.

But the fact is that Gardenia was so nice that it (and other brands of square loaves) soon took over the staple bread scene in Singapore. I even remember their ad campaign that Gardenia was "so good, you could even eat it on its own". When I had my first bite of a slice of Gardenia, that was exactly what we thought. "Wow, it is really so good that I can eat it on its own!" Soon, the good old sliced bread started dissappearing from the local grocery stall, together with freshly grated coconut.



Conclusion

Practically, the modern square loaves tastes better and keeps longer but these loaves provide a slice of childhood memories that is hard to replace.

Jie Bakery & Confectionery
123 Upper Paya Lebar Road
62811377
Open 24 hours
Closed Friday mornings

....Read more!

Gideon 300: Freshly Baked Traditional Hainanese Buns

Butter Buns: 2 for $1

There ain't nothing better than a freshly baked bun straight out from the oven..... except maybe a Hainanese freshly baked bun straight from the oven!

The bread culture in Singapore is alive and well and many are cashing in on the market for breads. You can find freshly baked soft buns in every neighbourhood centre in Singapore, so why am I so excited about these ones?

Most of the buns found in our neighbourhood bakeries have quite a standard bread dough. I suspect there must be a standard recipe or pre-mix that are supplied to these bakeries and then it is just a matter of adding different fillings. The buns are typically, very soft and very light. Have you tried squishing one of these buns before? You can basically reduce them to one third of its original size!

The buns here are different. If you remember my blog on Chin Mee Chin, I made mention of one of our Singapore Heritage institutions which is the Hainanese Coffeeshop that makes its own confectionery. Not many are left in Singapore. That is why I am so excited to find this typical Hainanese Bakery in a modern Food Court! At least someone is bucking the trend in order to provide us with an easily accessible piece of tradition.


Sausage Rolls: 80 cents

The buns here may appear smaller but they are more substance than form. The butter buns may only fit the size of your palm, but when you pick one up, you realize that it is quite substantial. The aroma of the freshly baked butter bun immediately triggered black and white images of marble tabletops with cups of Kopi served in traditional ceramic cups with saucers so deep that they used to decant the whole cup of kopi into the saucer to cool it down before sipping off its rim.

But nostalgia aside, the buns are really simple and delectalicious. For me, nothing beats having a few of these buns with a cup of Kopi or Teh C. Of course, what is a Hainanese confectionery without the custard puffs? Oohh, creamy light and fluffy custard puffs and Teh C........... Only problem is that these are tiny one mouthful ones so you need more than a couple to satisfy that craving.

Now a bakery like this doesn't just spring out of nowhere. There is a legacy behind it. The patriarch of the store is none other than the famous Ah Peh who runs the Keng Wah Sung Kopitiam in Geylang Lor 41. His son, who is a certified Baker decided to make their Hainanese Bun available to a wider audience by opening a shop in the Toa Payoh heartland.


Tuna on a freshly baked roll $1

Conclusion

Like the good old Kopi C, this is a piece of Hainanese Tradition that will never go away because it is just so good. This is rustic confectionery and I really hope to see more branches springing up across the island!

Gideon 300
HDB Hub
Gourmet Paradise Food Court #B1-24
8.30am to 7.30pm
Closed on Sun and PH
91901431

....Read more!

Breadtalk Silver: Next Evolution in our Bread Culture

With Amagada and the kids

Nori with Cheese $1.80

When I was a kid, there were only Curry Buns, Coconut Buns and Tau Sar Buns. It was back in the days when I used to stand at the Kaik Ai (Grocery Store) waiting for the lady to slice the skin off the Lohti (Bread Loaf) and cut it into slices. They would purposely NOT slice through, so that you have to still peel off the slice when you want to eat it. The reason they gave was because they don't want to cut the relationship with the customers. Practically, I think it was easier to pack the bread when it is not sliced through.

Then in the late 70s bakeries started to appear, offering hot dog, curry chicken, charsiew buns and square loaves cut with automatic bread slicers. Soon there were bakeries all over Singapore offering similar buns.

Everyone was happily making hot dog buns until 7 years ago, Breadtalk took Singapore by storm by introducing their pork floss buns and a host of other new and exciting creations. Suddenly, all the other bakeries awoke from their slumber and everyone started to be more creative with their buns. More creative being putting pork floss on everything!

Pot of Potato (back), Pot of Eggs (front)

So now that everyone is catching up with Breadtalk, they have again raised the bar by creating 150 new breads and cakes under their Breadtalk Silver banner.

Breadtalk Silver is not just another Breaktalk with new flavours. It is a new, limited edition Breadtalk which will have only a few branches in strategic parts of Singapore to cater to the well heeled and trendy crowd.

Fuji Pear $1.80

I was overwhelmed by the creativity of the new range of breads that the French, Japanese and Taiwanese chefs have come up with. By using exotic ingredients that one would hardly find in a typical Singaporean household and marrying them with breads that you would expect to find in a European bakery, they have managed to create a wonderland of breads that would please almost anyone.

I especially liked the "Pan Mantaigo" (pic right) which is a crusty french bread with japanese fish roe. The "Mr Hokkaido" (above right) is Hokkaido beans (Azuki beans) on a soft bun. They also had a "French Style" Naan bread with cheese and Edamame beans which was creatively called "Naan Da Yo?" The Fuji Pear (above) is a combination of a custard specially imported from Spain with Japanese Pear. I think you are starting to get the picture right?

Strawberry Crisps $6.20

Besides the Breads, they also make a whole range of exclusive cakes. Again, there are so many new and pretty cakes that you just stand there not knowing which one to try. I tried a few including the one touted to be their most exclusive cake, the Katrina Tiramisu (pic right). At $108 per cake, they only make 5 a day and each slice costs $9.80. They boast that they use only the finest imported ingredients like Italian Mascapone cheese. Quite honestly, I think it is a good Tiramisu but find it difficult to justify paying $9.80 for it.

The Strawberry Crisps (above) has slivers of strawberries and cream sandwiched between layers of crisp pastry. They tell me that they use specially imported Japanese Strawberries as they are more consistent in size and colour. Very pretty to look at but tastewise I found that the crispy pastry was not as light and crisp as they should be.

Conclusion

The variety and creativity is overwhelming. You really feel that they have brought the competition to the next level. Tastewise, I really did not find something that I could rave about. But with so many different and tempting varieties, it is just a place that you'd go back a couple of times in order to try out the all other creations!

Breadtalk Silver
Basement, Paragon Shopping Centre

Disclosure: This review was done at the invitation of Breadtalk and the breads and cakes were provided free of charge.

....Read more!