Tips for Dining, Eating, and Food Shopping in the SF Bay Area (including Berkeley, Oakland, Napa, Sonoma, Marin, and San Jose)
Start New ThreadAnyone know where I can get roti buns from somewhere other than Honeyberry in Santa Clara?
And if you don't know what I'm talking about:
By kclb
on Jul 28, 2011 03:50 PM
Story
Supertaster Daily: 5 Grilled Hot Dogs in 3 Minutes for Memorial Day
Story
Oreo and Hershey's Dessert Icings
Story
10 Spicy Snacks
Recipe
Peach Frozen Yogurt
Recipe
Easy Philly Cheesesteaks
Recipe
Easy Chicken Stir-Fry
View »
honeyberry has a concession in the food court at 925 blossom hill rd. in san jose. westfield mall, is it?
Permalink | Reply
they have a plain one at Baker's Village in Santa Clara.
have you tried the ones at PappaRich in Pasadena?
-----
Baker's Village
1484 Halford Ave, Santa Clara, CA 95051
Permalink | Reply
I was hoping for some places that sells them in the East Bay/SF! I live in Oakland and I don't want to have to drive ALL the way to the South Bay to get some!
Permalink | Reply
bit of a drive too, but they are mentioned in an Orange Leaf in Pleasant Hill's Yelp review
http://www.yelp.com/biz/orange-leaf-p...
Permalink | Reply
Stopped by Orange Leaf to try the buns. They're basically as described below -- soft bread with a coffee-flavored crust. They were only mildly buttery to me, even slightly dry...but I've never had a roti bun before, so I don't have anything to reference it by. I think it was $1.50 for a plain bun and $2 for flavored?
They had three flavors: Plain, chocolate butter, and cream cheese yogurt. This seemed to refer mainly to chocolate or yogurt chips respectively on top of the coffee crust.
The sign outside the shop claims that they bake the buns fresh every 15 minutes, although my plain bun was the last one at the time I was there (and no other customers around). The woman minding the counter did kindly offer to heat it up for me.
Permalink | Reply
If Baker's Village has it, you might try the bakery counter at Koreana Plaza.
-----
Koreana Plaza
2328 Telegraph Ave, Oakland, CA
Permalink | Reply
Looks like Hong Kong Cantonese style "Mexican bun", Japanese melon-pan (but without the big tile like pattern, the "snow flower" taro bun at HK Saigon Seafood Harbor in Sunnyvale, amongst a few other baked pastries, and also reminds me of the exterior of some of the pineapple cha siu buns at the nicer dim sum restaurants in Hong Kong...
So is the Roti-bun/Honeyberry SE Asian, Singaporean, Malaysian, Taiwanese, or Korean?
-----
Saigon Seafood Harbor Restaurant
3150 Pierce St, Richmond, CA 94804
Permalink | Reply
Gosh, these looked exactly like the Roti Boy buns we get over here in KL, Malaysia - but they're called Mexican buns over here, and are quite similar to those you'd find in bakeries down at the Mission.
Permalink | Reply
Dry and tasteless?
Permalink | Reply
The ones I'm talking about aren't dry and tasteless AT ALL! The bun is soft, buttery, and sweet! I believe this is a Southeast Asian take on the Mexican bun, but they're quite different.
More info:
"Based on my source (i.e., google), the roti bun trend originated from Malaysia. The roti bun is a soft, butter-filled bread, topped with a sugary coffee-flavored crust. I also read that this bun is based on a Mexican recipe. So basically, roti bun is a Malaysian concoction based on a Mexican recipe, now sold in Korea. You got that?"
- http://annalog.blogspot.com/2008/02/g...
Permalink | Reply
The Mexican version is dry and tasteless, so it sounds like the Malaysian / Korean version is a big improvement.
Permalink | Reply
The Malaysian ones are closer to what kclb described - they are extremely buttery. Also light & sweet. Usually sold hot out of oven.
Permalink | Reply
Creative/innovative dim sum restaurants in Hong Kong have already somewhat incorporated this kind of textured bun into dim sum. Could have sworn I saw a Tim Ho Wan cha siu bao with a "Mexican" bun exterior, but still called pineapple bun cha siu bao.
Permalink | Reply
the tim ho wan cha siu buns have a soft sweet lightly crumbly exterior, very delicate, different from the less crumbly coffee top flavored roti buns
the typical pineapple top buns in the US don't exactly mimic it because the top is finer in HK, and here it's bigger granular sugary and checkered-appearing "like a pineapple."
mexican buns (conchas) to me are drier with a sweet dense sugar glaze, but apparently roti buns were a variation of these...
from what I read, probably same sources as above, they were started by roti boy, malaysia
Permalink | Reply
The Malaysian Roti Boy coffee-flavored buns which originated in Penang, but spread throughout Malaysia & Singapore now, are very, very good. It can be a bit too buttery for some people though.
Permalink | Reply
This has been an informative thread. Doing a quick internet search of "Mexican buns" shows lots of hits in SF and Oakland. Even shows a CH thread from 1999.
Permalink | Reply