June 23, 2010
Crystal Jade Palace Restaurant, Crystal Jade 'Golden Palace', Crystal Jade 'Shanghai' Restaurant, Crystal Jade 'Korean Ginseng Chicken' & BBQ, Crystal Jade 'My Bread'. I laugh the names away.
The intriguing thing is that here at My Bread, something as so infantile; a baby to the family of the Crystal Jade group, one wonders if it has any chimerical visionaries, besides having gst, and as yet another bakery amongst the throat-cutting patisseries, orthodox-and-nots?
It is the the off-beat embrace of Hong Kong and Europe. Refreshing from the lands of the french-japanese, local-japanese, local-french, and swiss and german bakeries! The ristorante way there are chilled buns for you to takeaway by the bundles, or warmed breads hot and fluffy on the spot. How touching!
Longevity Bun with Sesame (SGD 1.20)
So what is Hong Kong like? Edgy, with the use of custards, butter, eggs, and traditional bean pastes. This longevity peach has its leaves picked, neatly aired as greens at the bud's tip.
Poked fun of its outlandish shape, the longevity bun epitomizes the elliptical form, and also the affiliation between the chinese and their buns. Picking out a green one is like picking a genetically-modified variety, artificially ripened without compromising its shelf-life and flavour. Grazing the inner filling, it is a double-tiered smooth(creamy) with an extra crunchy peanut butter core. Where is the sesame? There was a temporal pause before continuation- it was so natural-tasting that it felt more like tahini! For the days when you are caught between smooth and crunchy peanut butter.
Black Sesame Mantou (SGD 0.80)
Black dancing on a gray's surface. The first bread I had grabbed from My Bread's display. Why? Because it is so shiny; pailletted with not the ordinary white(catching the light), but black(absorbers of the light frequency).
Kaya Bun (SGD 1.00)
My Bread at Crystal Jade couldn't have been more my bread. Though this bread could really be a piece of jade. More is less- I wouldn't have been more enraptured seeing an all-green kaya bread. The whites could have been the metamorphic quartz- crystal.
Non-pretense foods, I did not bake nor streak this in green, so I did not know that the ripples would turn out this way with cutting. Crystal Jade; the kaya did live up to Crystal Jade's name, trusted.
A no-filling bun(mantou) in black is like the white-version of the gou bu li bao(go believe) bun. Unpretentious, unsightly, even; for the piebald body, it is a treasure that can be disguised with any topping/filling/flavour you want. Or ala carte; in my case, it was like the solid cube of my favourite chinese dessert, black sesame paste.
Black Sesame Bun (SGD 1.00)
Speaking of which Crystal Jade did go to the expense of setting it with stone-the black sesame- becoming a black sesame bun! True to its stance, it is indeed a black sesame-bun! Like squid ink topped with calamari spaghetti, you can never go wrong with a matching top and bottom! Fashionably black, one remembers this is not red bean bun, lotus paste bun or char siew bun, but black sesame bun!
P.S. Have an alice-in-wonderland bunny spread today! The buns are sold at buy-2-buns-get-one-no-filling-bun free.
