Loti Heaven on Earth!

Wow!! I'm soooo beaming right now because I just found a very interesting shop!!!

I arranged to have dinner with my brother tonight. We settled on our usual sibling dinner place somewhere in Upper Thomson. Got there quite early and for once we could not find a parking lot right outside the restaurant!! So while driving around the estate to find alternative parking space, we passed by this small stretch of shophouses and lo and behold found Awfully Chocolate! Needless to say I was surprised to spot this shop in such a nondescript place, but what caught my attention was not Awfully Chocolate but this very bright confectionary 2 shops away.

The place was buzzing with activity with many people hurtling around shopping for bread. I was very attracted to the traditional-looking shop front (seriously, I don't see many of such traditional looking confectionaries amidst our neighbourhood now) and excitedly went on to check out the place right after we parked the car.



There were trays of buns lined up neatly outside the shop and people were just buying these fresh from the oven buns. These are the traditional, simple looking buns that we used to see in those neighbourhood confectionaries. No fanciful names, no frills nor elaborate decor on the bread. Just plain, simple looking loti. Apart from the few sesame seed sprinkled on the outer layer of the bun to denote tau sar bun, the rest of the buns look almost alike.


As our stomachs were calling out for some nice warm dinner, we proceeded to have our dinner, agreeing that we would return after dinner to buy some of the bread. So right after our simple dinner, we gamely returned to the shop and started picking out bread that we wanted to try. For the buns, they have the various fillings such as tau sar, coffee, chocolate, butter, curry, coconut, peanut, kaya, hot dog & otah. Apart from the traditional white bread, they also have raisin and mini loaves. We were standing around marvelling at all the different types of buns and bread that they have, and having sooo much difficulty deciding what to buy. I guessed we must have looked like two sua-kus, yakking away excitedly and animately coz one of the store helpers (or owners), who was cutting the loaves of raisin bread (shaving off the sides of the bread and packing these shaved sides into small little bags) gave us one bag of the bread. Another one of them presented one tray full of bread pieces of varying shapes & sizes and asked us to try. We gladly took a piece each to sample.

Among the 2 of us, we bought 2 bags full of bread : chocolate, butter, tau sar x2, curry, peanut buns, 1 small baguette and 1 loaf of mini bread. The store helper / owner charged us a total of ....... $5 and threw in 2 raisin bread FOC! Wow!!!! All that bread for just $5?!?! UNBELIEVABLE! and not to forget how we got to sample their bread and even got free raisin breads. Simply LOVE this shop!


The people there were all very friendly. The shop is huge too. The back of the shop is used for the baking and we saw many guys kneading and moulding away at the loads of dough. This is what I call traditional hand-made bread!

Oh, and did I mention that they were blaring their speakers with hokkien music ? :P though a little noisy especially to those who dislike hokkien music, I have to admit it injects a little life into the otherwise very dead neighbourhood :P

One last surprising thing. Have you ever heard of a confectionary that closed at 5am ? Well, not me lor (ok, call me suaku again) ! Yes, this shop closes at 5am! Amazing isn't it ? So the next time when I'm out late and feeling hungry, I know where to go to get some comfort food like traditional hand-made loti!

The 2 of us tried the loti on our way home (yes, on top of our already very satisfying dinner!) and we were very impressed with the softness of the bread and how yummy they taste! Oh, this shop is such a gem!! I believe I will be going back there more often now to replenish my loti supply !! No more Gardenia Raisin Bread for now.... I've found my new love!! :)

I'm still beaming ear to ear from my this treasure find .... I'm gonna sleep like a baby tonite :)

LotiCrazeJazzy