Food and Drink

Shopping in bread boutiques

Forget about cocktail buns, pineapple buns, sausage buns, paper wrap cakes. In new-style bakeries here, or better known as "bread boutiques", those traditional local items have fallen out of favour. What take over are arrays of buns and rolls in creative shapes with exotic flavours and ingredients.

"The sweet taste and soft texture of the pork floss bun are too enticing to refuse," said saleswoman Vivian Wong Sze-ying, who is a regular customer of bread boutiques.

To cater for the tastes of different customers, a wide variety of cakes and bread like European sweet bread, French bread and even Indian naan, a kind of flat bread, fills the shelves of the newstyle bakeries.

Law Chi-kin, a cultural studies university student, said he was impressed by the innovative combinations of ingredients, such as that of "Japanese cola short pastry".

Apart from the bread ingredients, customers, especially the children, are also attracted by the shapes of the bread. Bread boutiques mould the dough into
animal shapes like puppy, bear and even octopus in order to capture children's attention.

"I like the puppy bread. It is cute," said Kristy Ng Ting-ting, a kindergarten pupil, who shopped with her mother at a bread boutique in Times Square, Causeway Bay.

Products of those bakeries are sold at HK$7 to HK$9 each, more expensive than that of traditional local buns and cakes. Still, customers are ready to pay for the gourmet bread.

Many of the bread boutiques are foreign bakery chains, such as BreadTalk and Panash. They are expanding in the Hong Kong bread market, as more customers here take buns and pastries any time of the day.

Customer Ryo Leung Fung-yee, who is a graphic designer, said: "I prefer having bread rolls for lunch because it is more convenient and time-saving."

BreadTalk, which is based in Singapore and has three shops in Hong Kong, targets mainly at working women aged between 20 and 40 since a majority of them buy bread rolls and buns for lunch.

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