NEWSLETTER #04

Mmm Curry Puffs.

There are two types of ‘queuing up for food’.

One, not because they want to, but they have to. War, famine, natural disaster, financial crisis, prison, a school cafeteria.

The other is a form of self-expression. They take photos of themselves queuing up, for a doughnut, or coffee, or a sandwich, to show that they could take a photo of themselves queueing up. They don’t have to, but they feel better doing so.

I used to despise the latter because I’m jealous of their ample amount of time, youth and energy. Now I get that there are worse reasons in life to join a queue. Birth, death and marriage certificate. Immigration check at the airport. People queue up for gigs, sneakers all the time. One day, I have to queue up at Disneyland for my daughter. Shivers.

There is, however, a third reason to queue up for food.

It’s like the stock market. When a company is launching its IPO, it is the most hardworking, eager to please. It is ambitious, idealistic, and passionate.

You want to get in before these companies get into the ‘hot’ zone. Because when success hits, they’ll stop chasing quality, but expansions, franchising.

We know the story: discover a place, tell all your friends, and they tell their friends, and the next thing you know, everyone goes there now, the chefs burn out, or worse, sell out. They start cooking from a central kitchen, you see jars of sauces with logos, foreign language signage on the door.

Once your favourite restaurants get picked up by media, some food vloggers’ gram, it’s the equivalent of your aunt asking about buying in GME or Afterpay.

It’s over.
Sailed, the ship has.

We queue, before everything goes to shit.

So it is a blessing, euphoric even, to find a place before the IPO.

A really good or a really shit restaurant, they look the same, don’t they? You know the design is based on the owner’s abstract imitation of what they think rich people think is trendy in the 1960s. The reviews online are useless because they’re so polarising. It’s not even a risk, it’s pure gamble. You never know before you put the food in your mouth.

You just gotta roll the dice.

Fan’s Patisserie

“Being a GP sucks,” says Darren.

He graduated with a unimelb medical degree and ended up making cakes in this shop located on the ground floor of an apartment along Elgin Street, Carlton.

Initially, he custom-made cakes for birthday parties. Those cutesy, colourful ones with little characters and different flavours. The target market was the Chinese international students in the neighbourhood.

Then COVID happened and he had to adapt. He kept the Patisserie name, but started selling Malaysian curry puffs instead.

”Croissant is so much easier than curry puffs. I have to create two different types of dough, flatten, roll and flatten again. And then we have to make the fillings by stir-frying onions, chicken, potatoes with spices. The easy way is to mash the potatoes right? But we dice them for the texture. Then we wrap the fillings with pastry, pleat the edges by hand and deep fry them.”

An Aussie lady walked into the shop and interrupted our conversation.

It’s ok, I’ll talk to you and provide some context instead: I came to Fan’s last week because my Singaporean client recommended them during a food shoot. “We’re thinking of asking them to be our supplier,” he said. “Since you live in Carlton, you should check them out.”

I walked in and found out everyone in the shop is from Klang, my hometown.

So, a Malaysian curry puff (known locally as karipap) is the bastard lovechild of the Portuguese empanada, British pie, and Indian samosa. In fact, due to our historic cesspool of cross-colonisation, I’m sure each country in South East Asia has its own variation of this puff.

Now let’s get back to our conversation.

”Your curry puffs, amazing. The pastry was incredible.” Said the lady. “But the pork pie, way too sweet. ”

She’s talking about the other hero of this shop, Seremban Siu Pao. Now that is a geographically specific dish to Malaysian, done in a specific way. Imagine the dimsum BBQ pork bun fillings, baked in pie pastry made with, you guessed it, lard.

Darren just politely say that’s how his culture does it. He thanked her for her opinions.

”Still, too sweet.” The lady vented, and walked out. I wasn’t sure how to feel for Darren, because that was 50% praise, 50% criticism. I wanted to defend the Siu Paos, but Darren just shrugged it off.

”That’s why I can’t make croissants.” Darren said. “Even if I make the best croissants in Melbourne, people won’t trust me because I’m not white. If they’re going to give comments anyway, I might as well make something I believe in and enjoy eating.”

Darren runs another popcorn business on the side. He said he had to work hard for that business to take off; this curry puff though, people came all the way from various suburbs through word of mouth. Like me.

“Who knew there are so many Malaysians in Melbourne?”

The rock of this shop is the old uncle in the kitchen. I saw shadows of him working in the kitchen. Darren’s here for 2-3 days; he’s here for the whole week.

Yesterday, on my second visit, he apologetically said it’s a 30-minute wait time since he sold out in the morning.

So I left to get a coffee, came back and sat there while he deep fried the curry puffs and baked the Siu Paos in the industrial oven.

He packed everything in a box, no logo, just a sticker.

”Thanks for your support”, he said.

Fan’s doesn’t have a website; just a facebook page that is outdated.

At this point, I’m not entirely sure if the curry puffs are really that good, or I’m just being sentimental. You know, trying to help out a fellow Pa Sang Lang in these trying time.

Hell, there must be something in the eastern suburbs, right? All these mass migration and no one is making decent Malaysian puffs? Come on. I remember Froggy’s Pantry offering something similar, but she does it as a hobby during certain weekends and sells out in hours like a lottery system.

At least here, I get consistency. (Although, I must say, the ones I remember having as a child had hard boiled eggs in them.)

One thing for sure, the effort to run a shop and make pastries to order is more than their $3.50 pp asking price. If you think that’s overpriced, consider how much we pay for coffee, croissants, cannoli, doughnuts, muffins.

I’m just riding this wave before they realise the same thing.

In short, I like the stock.

If you’re new here, thanks for purchasing my book. This is a space of my random thought vomit on food. You can view the previous newsletters here, here, and here.