Breakfast - Cheung Heung Yuen

What constitutes a good breakfast? To me, breakfast is the most important meal of the day as it is the first you eat after fasting over the night - thats where the meal gets its name from. Friends who know me well must learn my passion for breakfast - a good one is the prerequisite for a successful, fruitful day which follows.

Now to answer the question the literal way: what IS a good breakfast? For me, the answer is simple: a good cup of drink, my personal preference being a local Lai-Cha, or a nicely pulled latte; plus something simple and heartly, say, a slab of thick, nice and crunchy toast topped with peanut butter and condensed milk, or jam. I dont usually have a bun for breakfast.

That apparently does not apply when i visit Cheung Heung Yuen, one of the very few chaa-chan tengs which serve awfully thin toasts (which i hate) but still i am in love with.

What keeps pull me back is their backyard bakery, which freshly produces a large variety of Hong Kongese bread, sweet and savory, for eat-in and takeaway. I have tried its famous Gai-mei bun with lotus seed paste which was unique and tasty; as well as the red bean paste bun which vaguely resembles the shining sun. This time i want to try something different. Sadly, I was late this morning and not many were left on the big metal baking trays. The coconut bun looked tempting and thus i made my pick, and ate it with an iced lai-cha.

The drink was a little disappointing - it would taste better without the ice which kept melting and diluting the milk tea - a waste it was! Should have ordered it hot despite the boiling 29C summer out there.

The bun had a soft texture and yet was still a little chewy - eating from the outmost rind, the interior of the bun was covered with the seasoned flakes of coconut. It was really tasty and i appreciate how the shape of the bun (layered into circles/rolls) has helped to even out the distribution of the flakes and thus the thing was balanced in flavour, as the usual buns would be stuffed with a lump of oversweetened fillings while the bun on the outside remain bland in taste and dry in texture.

This place makes its own lining papers for its bun too!