Year: 2004

Hong Kong Pau Cafe or Xiao Pa Wang is the newly established pau cum dim sum cum bakery cum cafe. It has literally cummed on the…er, stiff
*cough* competition along Jalan Padungan, which is famed for having the
best paus in town. Hong Kong Pau has just recently opened its doors and
the crowds have been thronging to this establishment and haven’t
stopped ever since. I have noticed a remarkable decrease in patrons to
the 6 other pau specialty establishments here ever since this place
opened.

Hong Kong Pau Cafe brings about a new light to pau establishments,
giving this old industry a complete new makeover. It has a fusion of
foods to choose from and cool al fresco *smacks myself upside the head*
seating arrangements to the side.

The place only serves one type of pau – char siew pau or pork bun,
but they also have a remarkable array of dim sum offerings featured in
front. Their dim sum repertoire contains about 20 odd dishes of dim sum
offerings – more than most other dim sum places here offers.

Xiao Pa Wang’s most prominent area is to bakery to the side.
Finally, we have a bakery with seating arrangements! Xiao Pa Wang
serves all sorts of innovative and imaginative (for Kuching, anyway)
pastries and baked goods.

We finally have pork floss rolls! w00t! It tastes about the same as
Bread Story/Bread Talk offerings; it’s the secret semen-consistency
type sauce that gives pork floss rolls the oomph! 😉

There is also a small heated oven to the side where they serve all
sorts of pies – strawberry pies, blackberry pies, egg cream pie, curry
chicken pie etc. The list goes on and the menu keeps changing.

I have visited this establishment many, many times. I have ate here
and had some to go, before writing this review because I believe this
place deserves a proper review due to it’s innovative (for Kuching)
nature.

The flagship offering – the paus or buns are always warm and fluffy.
I’ve never had a hard crust one from here, you know, the leftovers
which have grown tough. This place serves fresh paus all that time.

Here’s a look at the inside – the filling is just nice and the fluffy small bun goes well with it.

The most famous offering from the bakery here is undoubtedly the
pork ham. It’s a piece of ham wrapped in a swirl of soft pastry and the
illustrious semen type filling with coriander to top it off. I’m
telling you, that semen mixture that’s all the rage in bakeries
nowadays is great!

This is the blueberry pie. The crust is flakey and the filling tastes good, not artificial, like from a jam jar.

Here’s the egg cream pie, it tastes like a cross between an egg tart and a cream pie.

The pastries can be ordered to go as well, and this place has the proper packaging for everything, unlike other bakeries.

This is the chocolate roll. It’s a phallic looking pastry with a
flaky crust and a nice cocoa filling. It’s not too sweet, which is
great, the cocoa tastes like real unsweetened cocoa.

This is the lotus pastry. It’s also spherical and contains lotus
paste. It’s good, but I won’t rate it as great. It’s certainly better
than most offerings from Kuching, I’ll tell you that.

Here’s the strawberry pie – exactly like the blueberry pie, but with strawberry filling. It’s good, better than I expected.

This is one of their new menu offerings – it’s called a pork bun or
something, it has bacon or ham folded inside the pastry and a generous
dollop of that Special Sauce (TM) on top. I love that stuff.

Hong Kong Pau Cafe or Xiao Pa Wang gets two thumbs up from me. The
place changes its offerings regularly so there’s always something new
each time you go, while retaining the old classics that everyone loves.
The service here is extremely nice, the girls are friendly, and the
place just offers good food, all the time. Oh, and I think they read
the blog coz the girls called me yesterday.