GAI MEI BAO 雞尾包 -- FINE FOR STUFFED CREATURES

When I woke up the apartment was empty. Which is odd, because I had clearly heard my apartment mate rummaging around earlier.
As well as the "voices" of the stuffed creatures.

It turns out that she had simply popped across the hill to Chinatown to pick up something for breakfast. And, remarkably, some of the stuffed creatures were full of praise upon her return.


"We monkeys just LOVE gai mei bao!"


When your apartment mate grew-up in Chinatown, it should come as no surprise that Cantonese foods and concepts are part of the vocabulary of the stuffed creatures. But I'm baffled that the one-legged gibbon knows about gai mei bao. I had no idea.

The 雞尾包, or 'Cocktail Bun', is not something one normally associates with small crazed furballs. Especially as it was not available two or three decades ago in quite the form that we are now familiar with. Along with strong bitter milk-tea, tapioca drinks, and garlic noodles, it blew in from Hong Kong as the population of C'town changed over the years.

A sweet buttery coconut-shreddy mash-up surrounded be sweet dough and baked. Superlative fresh. Texture variance meets flavour in a comfort food.

Monkeys just love gai mei bao.

And so do humans.



AFTERWORD

This blogger regrets that he is not a breakfast person. The idea of a hot gai mei bao sounds lovely, but all I can tolerate for the first two or three hours after getting up is strong coffee and depressingly bad news from my favourite newspaper sites.

But later, when I've wandered into Chinatown myself today, I shall seek out a place which does gai mei bao. A nice cup of strong milk-tea and a hot gai mei bao around four o'clock (tea time) sounds like the perfect preamble to smoking a pipe while feeling festive in the freezing cold.
Or maybe a toasted piggy bun with butter.
That too.


Not a breakfast person. A tea-time snackipoo followed by aged Virginia tobacco person. I spend more time outdoors on my days off than most healthfreaks and anti-smokers. Total lumberjack, yeah.



California during the rainy season: ah, the smell of fresh growing things.
Mold, mildew, and moss.




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