New Online Bakery’s Thai-Style Grilled Buns So Popular They Sold Out Before Its Launch
Even before its official launch on December 15, The Bun Club, an online-based store peddling Thai-style grilled buns, has been consistently sold out. Pre-orders of its custard-filled rolls were available from Dec 5. Around 600 buns were sold each week, the rolls are inspired by the famed breads from street food stall Yaowarat Toasted Buns in Bangkok’s Chinatown (Yaowarat).
The inspiration behind The Bun Club's bakes. Photo: Eileen Ong/Burpple
“Self-pickups and deliveries are only done on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. We make everything from scratch, so the other days are spent baking bread and making our custard fillings. The buns are grilled and fillings added just before pick-up. We wouldn’t be able to cope if we sold our buns daily,” owner Wong Wee Man, 23, tells 8days.sg.
Started the biz on a whim
Wee Man, who is half-Thai, is an avid home cook and has always had an interest in F&B. Even though he had never baked prior to the biz, he decided to quit his project manager job at his family’s custom automation machinery business in November to start a bakery selling the snack simply because he likes to eat it.
“It was a very impulsive decision. I decided I wanted to open a Thai bakery and I just chiong and did it,” he laughs.
“I didn’t even tell my parents ‘cos they are not open to me doing my own thing. They want me to take over my dad’s business which I have zero interest in. They feel I won’t be able to make it on my own, so I only told them about the business after I set everything up. But they are quite proud of me now.”
Wee Man spent around $15,000 to start The Bun Club. The buns are currently made in a central kitchen housed in a modest basement two unit at The Promenade@Pelikat, a mixed-development in Kovan. The 116 sq ft space also doubles up as his “takeout shop”, though buns here are subject to availability as they focus more on pre-orders. Slots are released two weeks in advance.
While starting out as a home-based business would make more financial sense for the new entrepreneur, Wee Man decided against it as he was worried “people wouldn’t take [him] seriously”. “If I have a central kitchen, customers will think this is a legit bakery and churn out amazing buns. I also wanted to have my own workspace,” he reasons.
That strategy seems to have worked, judging by the overwhelming response.
“I was very shocked by the response. I think people are very curious about the buns ‘cos they are quite unique. We rely a lot on social media marketing and word of mouth. I have quite influential friends with pretty big followings who helped share about the buns on Instagram, so that really helped,” says Wee Man.
Thai grilled buns, but make them atas
Wee Man’s buns are more refined than the OG ones from Yaowarat. Instead of square white dinner rolls, Wee Man uses Japanese milk bread (shokupan), which he makes from scratch. Shokupan is known for its distinct slightly sweet flavour and fluffy interior. When grilled, it has a “nice balance of soft and crisp”.
The buns are made using tang zhong, a thick paste of milk, flour and water, which is mixed into the dough. This ensures the bread turns out soft and airy. The buns are then brushed with brown butter before grilling to give it a nutty flavour.
The fillings have also been given a gourmet twist. Unlike the traditional buns which are loaded with gooey, runny sauce or spreads, these boast silky French pastry cream infused with various flavours, and topped with gold flakes or Moroccan rose petals for added luxe.
“The Yaowarat buns are very messy. They just scoop the fillings into the bun and serve it. I didn’t want to lose the element of messiness, but yet wanted to make them Instagram-worthy, so I incorporated French pastry cream into the Thai buns,” shares Wee Man.
Seven flavours and counting
The buns are offered in seven flavours and currently can only be bought as a set of three ($12.50) or six ($24). If you can’t decide what to get, The Bun Club has a set, cheekily named The Perfect Partouze ($24 for six items) which comes with Milk, Thai Tea, Pink Milk, Matcha, Lotus Biscoff, and Chocolate buns. All recipes are cobbled together from various sources, and then Wee Man and his team tinker with them.
There are plans to introduce new flavours as well as a savoury line with fillings like scrambled egg or kimchi next month.
Hawker stall coming soon
Now that the business has taken off, the ambitious towkay is looking for a suitable space to open his first hawker stall, hopefully in the next couple of months. Ideally, he would like it to be at Lau Pa Sat as Wee Man feels the buns would appeal to the “Gen Z or millennials as well as the office crowd”. Opening shop at a hawker centre would also allow him to grill his buns over a charcoal flame to give it a nice, charred taste.
His vision for the business is to be a “street-style bakery” operating pop-up stalls at events. “I have plans to do pop-ups at random car parks. I have been liaising with Golden Mile Tower to use their car park, which is open air and has a very nice view. I can imagine grilling the buns there and people eating them while enjoying the view,” he says with a smile.
Milk
The buns are more substantial than the Yaowarat buns and have a soft, slightly chewy texture. Grilled till crisp on the outside and soft inside, the buttery roll pairs well with the smooth custard which is light with a nice full-cream milk flavour. The bun is stuffed with so much custard that it oozes out when we bite into it. Messy but quite shiok.
Thai Milk Tea
Tea leaves are steeped in milk overnight before it is used to make the pastry cream. The result is a mildly sweet and light custard, though those of us who like our cha yen (Thai milk tea) intense felt it could be sweeter and more gao, and the tea flavour more robust.
Pink Milk
This isn’t strawberry custard but nom yen, a popular blush-coloured Thai drink made with salak fruit-flavoured syrup. It has a sweet floral taste and scent that reminds us of rose syrup. Yummy if you are a fan of bandung.
Pandan Kaya
One of our favourite flavours, this one is filled with a delicate pandan custard and sprinkled with desiccated coconut flakes. Though the custard is made with pandan syrup as opposed to freshly squeezed pandan juice, it is surprisingly natural tasting. Fragrant and not too sweet, but we would have liked it a bit more lemak.
Lotus Biscoff
Also worth the calories is the Lotus Biscoff, which is filled with pastry cream mixed with biscoff sauce and topped with the caramelised cookie. It’s on the sweeter side with just the right balance of richness.
Matcha
This one’s for the matcha fans. The matcha flavour is pronounced and we like that it is barely sweetened. A light dusting of matcha powder adds a tinge of bitterness.
Chocolate
We were pleasantly surprised by how rich and chocolatey the custard was. Infused with dark chocolate, it is velvety with a bittersweet note, and doesn’t leave you feeling jelak after an entire bun.
Pre-order the buns at www.thebunclubbakes.com. Self-collection available from 11am to 3pm at #B2-04 The Promenade@Pelikat, 183 Jalan Pelikat, S537643. Instagram
Photos: 8days.sg, The Bun Club
