Hot Rocky Bun With Butter & Condensed Milk 煉奶菠蘿油 - South by Square Eight

MOP 35, approx. US$ 4.5

This is Hong Kong's well known breakfast and afternoon tea bun.  This bun has also been widely popular in Macau for many years and its popularity in Macau may as well make it the trademark bun of Macau.  This is a sweet bun with a sweet buttery crust on top.  Because of its shape that resembles the pineapple , it's always known to the people in both Hong Kong & Macau as the Pineapple bun.  Its Chinese name is therefore totally different from its English name on the restaurant's menu.  This bun is typically served as a butter sandwich, which has a thick piece of butter in between the top and bottom slices of the freshly baked bun.  The condensed milk on the side is for dipping.  I could easily order this bun at the small mom and pop cafes tugged in some of those narrow streets in Macau, but I preferred comfortable seating and I doubt this would cost less at a crowded mom and pop cafe that has no spacious and beautiful bathroom.  I had tried this bun many times everywhere in Hong Kong & Macau before this restaurant was built, so I can attest that the bun at this restaurant tasted just as good, fresh, and authentic like those served at the little places that made this bun famous in the first place.  This bun is always served hot, and sandwiched with a nice square of cold butter.  The bun at this restaurant was so deliciously fresh, as if it just came out of the oven.  I feel hungry just by writing about it now.

It's really nice to be able to have such casual diner staple  at a beautifully decorated restaurant, since I  can still remember the old days when I had to share a really small table with sweaty strangers inside a tiny cafe without air conditioning in order to have this bun.