Saint Honore Cake Shop, Haymarket

If there's a favourite Chinese bakery item I have, it's definitely the humble but gloriously tasty cocktail bun.



The cocktail bun, or gai mee baau, is a long sweet bun always marked with two pale stripes and usually scattered with a handful of sesame seeds. More importantly, they're filled with an addictive coconut mixture, the ingredients of which I've never quite been able to ascertain. But think butter, sugar, egg and lots of dessicated coconut and you get the picture.



So why is it called a chicken tail bun? I'd love to know. Some Chinese women I spoke to thought the signature stripes looked like a chicken's tail. Or perhaps the name came about because they were commonly served at cocktail parties, and the pre-requisite martini glasses look like cock's tails.

But whatever the reasoning, I can't speak about cocktail buns without mentioning St Honore Cake Shop in the same sentence. For it is here where the cocktail bun reigns supreme.

I'm a cocktail bun fanatic. I've done the taste tests. I've tried cocktail buns across Chinatown, Burwood, Ashfield and even Hong Kong, and none come close to the perfection that is the St Honore cocktail bun.

For it is only here that the filling is at its eggy and coconutty best. And they give you lots of it too. None of this stingy smear of filling. And all for an economically satisfying 80c.

It used to require a health-conscious resolve of steel to resist the allure of the St Honore cocktail bun, especially with the sugary just-baked aromas wafting from the warming ovens in the arcade corridor. The tiny shopfront was always chok-a-block with hungry students, kids and parents embroiled in a not-so-subtle brawl over elusive tongs and trays.



But guess what. St Honore have finally completed their renovations. Having operated out of makeshift even pokier premises down the arcade for the past month, the new revamped, bright and modern cake shop opened late last week. The back kitchen has been knocked out, completely opening up the shop and allowing, yes, a walk-in capacity without the need to stick your elbow in someone's face.




Good luck and prosperity flower arrangements for the store's opening


The new drool-inducing shop frontage on Sussex Street



There are plenty of other tasty cakes available here of course, including Mexico buns, mango pancakes, floss buns, daan tarts, eggy sponge cakes, swiss rolls and sticky glutinous rice dumplings. If savoury is more your weakness, there are curry puffs, bbq pork buns, frankfurt buns, shallot buns and even sticky rice parcels.

Even more surprising is that prices seem to have remained the same. Maybe they'll be hitting us with the subsidy for the cost of overheads in about three months, but for now, the cocktail bun is still a mere 80c.

Of course we had just one thing in mind when we visited.

Cocktail buns.
And yes, check out the trendy new carrier bags too.




View Larger Map

Saint Honore Cake Shop
427-429 Sussex Street, Haymarket Chinatown Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 9281 1628