Little Pan-Fried Bun

A quick stop for comforting pork stuffed pan-fried buns, also offering soups and Chinese style bbq skewers for dine in or take out.

My search to find good buns and dumplings continues at Little Pan-Fried Bun. This small shop offers pan fried buns and hot soups throughout the day, but also acts as a Chinese BBQ in the evening offering skewers and other dishes from their “949 Grill Lounge” menu.

Along with sit down, they offer take out and delivery. Although, I’m pretty sure you’d want to enjoy the buns fresh. It would be interesting to also try the skewers and soup options, as those are quite a different experience than the buns. For the soup, you are provided with a gas stove to keep your soup boiling hot, similar to hot pot. I am not sure how the skewers are served.

The inside off the restaurant certainly has an aesthetic, including Lego sculptures, photorealistic plushies, a teddy bear made of roses, and lots of decoration on the walls.

I really wanted to try the different types of buns without ordering 6 of each. It just so happens that they offer an assorted pan-fried pork bun that offers 2 house special, 2 shrimp and leek, and 2 curry buns. It doesn’t say this on the paper menu, so this is good info to know.

Curiously they also offer a corn cheese bun, a purple yam and cheese bun, a chocolate dessert bun, and a black truffle 24k gold bun ($30/6pc). I think these ones are more untraditional and may be fun if you’d like to try a novelty.

As expected of a pan-fried bun, it has a lovely golden gradient on the bottom of the bun, and is filled with juicy broth on the inside along with its filling. The bottom is satisfyingly crunchy. The bun is more on the doughy side rather than fluffy and sweet. The broth is flavorful but not scorch your mouth hot. The meat of the house special is okay, but mostly tastes like salted pork. The combination of crispy dough, juicy broth, and meat all together is what actually makes it good.

The shrimp and leek bun has a strong leek flavor, and appears what still seems to be pork inside along with shrimp. There is meat in here, and I think it’s pork, so just be aware if you are trying to avoid pork. I think the flavor profile on this bun is more complex than the house special, as there are more flavors to interact, combining the fresh greens of the leek, saltiness of the pork and broth, and flavors of the shrimp.

While the curry bun still very much tastes like a yellow curry, it is not oozing out curry like the other buns did broth. It still has a juicy oily broth on the inside, and it seems like the curry powder is cooked with the pork to make a curry pork stuffing. The flavor is pretty good for those who like the curry flavor, and is still juicy enough to be a super dense bun.

Overall, a pretty good comfort food experience that could be a quick meal of juicy buns. However, I don’t think that on the spectrum of pan-fried buns these were spectacular. The color on the buns was great, but the texture of the bun is weak. The contrast of fluffy dough and crispy bottom is what makes it good, and I feel like the doughy bun was just okay in quality. The insides were all rich in flavor, but nothing to write home about.