Cliff(y) Goes Dining

Virgin experience with cheesy hot cross buns! Blessed Easter Sunday! It's a cherished tradition of mine to indulge in hot cross buns for the occasion every year. This year, I bought some from Marks & Spencer, a British multinational retailer founded by Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer in 1884. Also included in this blog post are a few other treats from the store.

"Baking the world a better place!" Bear's Paw Bakery is a popular spot to have a quick bite in Jasper, Canada. As my BFF and I were staying at Jasper Downtown Hostel that doesn't provide breakfast, we dropped by Bear's Paw Bakery in the morning before taking Jasper SkyTram and conquering the summit of Whistlers Mountain.

"Spectaculoos speculoos" and waffle! Don't leave Belgium without indulging in its waffles. That's what everyone says, right? Apart from those that my BFF and I got from small kiosks as we were wandering about Brussels, we also tried one at Maison Dandoy that has been around since 1829, operating a total of ten branches at the point of writing.

In addition to pineapple pastry, how about its cranberry counterpart? Heralded as the bakery with the best pineapple pastry in the nation, Chia Te has been around since 1975. It has got only one store not far from Nanjing Sanmin Station in Taipei, Taiwan. Be prepared to queue outside as there's usually a staff member who controls the flow of people into the not-so-big shop.

Where purple yam marries cheese~ If you're looking for something to bring home from the Philippines, you may want to consider hopia , a local version of Chinese pastry filled with flavoured paste. From its humble beginning in 1912, Eng Bee Tin has stood the test of time and is well known for its purple yam hopia .

A set of wife cakes with four different flavours! Hello, February! Before I finally go back to write about Singapore eateries, let me finish off the HK-Macau food trip with  lao po bing  (lit. wife cake). Wing Wah Bakery's history dates back to 1950 at one small corner in Yuen Long, a neighbourhood where the famous competitor - Hang Heung Bakery - is. I didn't go to Yuen Long last December, but I bought the cakes from the airport branch while waiting to board the flight SQ861 back to Singapore.

Renowned wife cake from the original store in Yuen Long! No trip to Yuen Long would be complete without lao po bing (lit. wife cake). I purposely hunted the original Hang Heung Bakery down. The suffocating heat of summer in HK was no joke. Despite my T-shirt soaked with perspiration, the journey was worth it.

Pineapple bun filled with decadent char siew! I hope everyone has had a (intentional, mind you) good Good Friday holiday so far. As I recall my secondary school days in St. Joseph's Institution, our form tutors would give us hot cross buns every year during the Easter season. Well, I'm not having one today, but I'm going to review piping hot HK stuff. The bakery gets its name from a district in HK off the beaten path for many tourists, which is particularly famous for its lao po bing  (lit. wife cake).

"For most Filipinos, the Goldilocks fairytale has two versions." Yup, the naughty golden-haired girl who made the little bear cried by eating his porridge and breaking his chair, and the famous bakery establishment since 1966! Nowadays, there are several branches in the States, Canada and Thailand as well.  

The most famous egg tarts in Macau! This shall be the last review of the week as we're going to Bangkok tomorrow! Ready for the most famous  pastéis de nata  (Portuguese egg tarts) in Macau? Andrew Stow hails from England, opening his first bakery on Coloane Island in late 1980s.

Macau's 2nd most famous egg tarts! I believe almost all visitors in Macau would like to have a bite on the ever-popular pastéis de nata  (Portuguese egg tarts), and of course, myself included. By the way, Margaret is an ex-wife of the famous Lord Stow of Coloane who is the king of egg tarts in Macau. I'll talk more about Lord Stow's Bakery in the coming review!

How fantastic is the legendary egg tart in HK? Recipes for egg tarts found online often have the name Tai Cheong embedded, testament to the fame and popularity of the original one. I believe there are already more than 10 branches in HK (Macau included), but the original one is nested in Lyndhurst Terrace.

Selling navettes since 1781! I'm going to take back my words in the previous entry. I overlooked a set of pictures on one of the culinary specialties in Marseille: navette , a hard, dry biscuit in the shape of a vessel.

Roti kombinasi: what'll you get? I wanted to write a review on the canteen food I had during the summer school, but somehow I couldn't find the necessary pictures. Let's save it for later, and let me introduce you to a bakery which has been consistent in quality over the years. I'd say I grew up with various kinds of bread made by this bakery. Cheap and good!

"One is never enough... Buns to die for!" Sorry for being tardy in updating my blog lately; there's been quite a number of stuff preventing me from even sitting in front of my laptop nowadays. Anyway, today I'm going to write a short review on Rotiboy Bakeshoppe that hails from Malaysia. The bakery has more than 50 outlets in Indonesia, but none is left  here in Singapore. :/

Sweet temptation specially made in front of us! Today I'm going to write a special review about the sweet stuff I had during my visit to Institut Paul Bocuse, a school of hospitality and culinary arts. Paul Bocuse is a prominent chef based in Lyon, famous for his innovative approaches to cuisine. Oh, the school building looks like a castle!

Secret donut??? One free morning, my friends and I went to Musée des Tissus et des Arts décoratifs (Museum of Fabrics and Decorative Arts). It was raining, and we happened to reach there a bit too early and thus had to wait for a while till it opened. Since we hadn't had breakfast, we dropped by Times Donuts to try some of their donuts and drink hot chocolate to warm ourselves up.

Cheap macarons indeed... Getting bored while waiting for our turn to get into the Catacombes-de-Paris (Catacombs of Paris), two of my friends decided to get out of the queue for a while to get us some macarons from the McCafé nearby. Actually, we'd already been thinking about trying them much earlier haha...

Dreaming of another bite of raspberry chocolate cake :P This entry features another quick meal that I had in Marseille. However, while most of my friends ordered sandwiches, I tried to diverge from the majority and instead ordered the two following items for lunch.

Croissant with savoury fillings...? UPDATE (18/04/2018): The café has moved to 63 Brighton Crescent. Let's start with a light review this month. I chanced upon a small bakery café in Bukit Timah, which offers a Croissant Set Meal  at S$5.00 , to chill out. Choices include Tuna Mayo Croissant, Egg Mayo Croissant and Chicken Mayo Croissant, and the croissant comes with a pot of tea. I came there on a weekday at a very odd hour, and thus no other customers were inside. It really felt as if I owned the café LOL...