Higher and higher…

There was this song by Rita Coolidge entitled “(Your love has lifted me) higher and higher” and come to think of it, my love for these tua paos (big/giant buns)…and for that matter, everybody else’s, has lifted the price higher and higher…

I think it was around RM1.50 or less long ago when the coffee shop, Loke Ming Yuen, was in the Li Hua Building (where Ngiu Kee Supermarket & Departmental Store is located) and then it moved to the Fortune Commercial Centre behind the Rejang Medical Centre, next to the main Sushi Tie outlet here. By then, if I remember correctly, the price had gone up to RM2.00…and then RM2.20…RM2.50…and now it is RM2.70 each.

I love it a lot, particularly the taste of the filling inside with the slice of hardboiled egg…

There used to be a coffee shop in the block of shophouses across the road from Bukit Bintang Plaza in KL that sold very nice tua pao – with chicken meat. That was around the mid-80s. I remember once I was stuck in a cab in a traffic jam around 6 something in the evening…and the cab driver nonchalantly took out his tua pao and started eating. Then he turned to me and said that it was VERY nice but I should not eat any as I was already so fat! Grrrrr…!!! This must be what they say in Malay, “Sudah jatuh ditimpa tangga!” or adding insult to injury in English. LOL!!!

There are cheaper buns around but then of course, they may not be as nice. Like the other day, I bought those at the MasterBakery at Rejang Park…

That’s the place that I usually go to to buy their yummy butter pastries. As you can see, they are relatively smaller in size. The ones with the green dot is the bak pao (meat bun) and if I remember correctly, they’re RM1.70 each…and they call it Hainan bak pao or something like that. I found that the filling had a bit too much of the taste of ginger to my liking…

…but on the whole, it was not too bad.

The char siew pao is cheaper at only RM1.50 each…

…and the filling is not too bad either. But I think the ones at the Big Thumb Bakery here are nicer…or I would much sooner go for the dim sum-type of char siew pao at Mitsu Tea House at more or less that same price, just that they are smaller.

Whatever it is, if you ask me, any pao is nicer than the ones at that place in Kuching with an obscene sounding name… LOL!!!