I've always been rather fond of bread/buns and pastries ever since childhood. I can recall when I was much younger (about 10 years old), eagerly accompanying my parents to the bakery store and picking out (or rather using a pair of plastic tongs) the best looking assorted pastries, buns and sandwiches. I never grew tired of the tuna mayo, ham and cheese sandwiches/buns, barbeque pork/chicken buns/paos, garlic bread toasts and even the sweet ones like the local red bean or lotus buns, pandan sponge cakes, chocolate chip or apple and cinammon muffins and dark chocolate brownies that melt like heaven in your mouth. I was perfectly contented to eat a toasted sandwich slathered with a generous helping of rich butter and pandan kaya that oozed its deliciousness during the afternoon (rather than a boring bowl of noodles) washed down by a steaming cup of hot sweetened green lipton tea that seems to perfectly compliment the meal. Parents these days will be absolutely delighted if their kids devour a healthy and nutritious turkey sandwich stacked with thick slices of cheddar cheese or a smoked salmon and avocado wrap rather than a Mcdonalds french fries or a deep fried McChicken burger. So I guess I was more or less cultivated this good eating habit since I was young as my mum often packed salami, nutella or tuna mayo sandwiches in my lunchbox before heading off to school.
They are extremely convenient to eat, you can eat it on the run while you are waiting to catch a bus, walking down the street or even while your window shopping. They make a fantastic snack when you are too busy to make something like eg: instant noodles (which are brimming with MSG) and can be very nutritious too; such as the ham and cheese croissant which is packed with protein, dairy and your daily essential carbohydrates. And they do leave you feeling quite satisfyingly full afterwards. Back in KL, I always looked forward to the evenings (around 8pm) at shopping malls where they offer discounted prices on the various pastries and everything is up for grabs. Swarms of customers would be queuing up for these delicacies, snatching them off the racks before the next person could even get the chance to catch a glimpse of it. Unfortunately, they do not seem to have the local buns/pastries like the ones I adore in KL (kaya filled buns, red bean polo buns, char siew or dried meat with chicken floss buns etc) and are only available in several stores if you are willing to catch a bus to Chinatown.
And even right now, POW hospitals offer free food during clinical meetings or presentations which largely comprises of delicious meat wraps, muffins, finger sandwiches and assorted pastries. So I was attending one of those meetings and spotted a few scrumptious looking Danish pastries and decided to try one. After I took my first bite out of a strawberry jam filled Danish pastry, I could taste the loveliness of the bread that was crisped to perfection and didn't even bother that the jam was probably spurting out the corners of my mouth. I did not regret choosing this over the finger sandwiches. From that day onwards, I took a complete infatuation with danish pastries and lattices and similar looking savoury croissants (like ham and cheese). Luckily they are available near my apartment and are often sold at bakeries such as Bakers delight or even Coles supermarket where they pack different sorts of Danish pastries at a reasonably affordable price. (I HAVE TRIED ALL THE DANISH PASTRIES AT COLES SUPERMARKET). All I have to do is pop it into my electric toaster. I must admit that my electric toaster/oven has become a very valuable kitchen appliance (like my new best friend) as it is being fully utilised. So much, that one day my toast actually caught fire due to my carelessness of leaving the bread too long in the oven. It's actually more convenient for me to buy the pastries from Coles supermarket as they expire in a couple of days which gives me ample time to eat it, are actually cheaper if you divide the total cost and are stored in air tight sealed plastic containers which conceals the freshness and flavour. I normally buy several packets to keep during the week which saves me the trouble of making trips back and forth. Yeah, so there have you have it, my new found love and staple diet: Danish pastries and croissants.
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