A long time ago, in Rathgar Road, there used to be a bakery selling...delicious juicy coconut buns. They came in a tray of half dozen and the white buns were swimming in thick, creamy coconut milk.
Now several years later, there are not one but two bakeries in that block of shops which includes a barbers, a chemist, a dairy, a former Four Square grocery, a laundromat, a Noodle Box, a $2 shop and a fish and chips takeaway. My Uncle used to own that takeaway and, like all good Chinese children I got a job for $5 hour making fish and chips and toasted sandwiches and burgers. However my brilliant career as Takeaway business owner never really took off. I think I just didn't see myself as top chef of the Takeaway world. It wasn't something I needed to stay in school for.
Even though, on the face of it, I could eat fish and chips everyday because I love fish and chips. At least with a takeaway job you never went hungry. When dad was at loss for what we could have for lunch in the school holidays, and because he didn't really want to burn down the house (we never deep fried our chips at home) he would order takeaways. One scoop of chips and four fish. And a sausage. Maybe they would throw in a potato fritter for free. The food was wrapped in paper and newspaper, back when we actually had decent size newspapers. There was no internet or online order or uber or eftpos either.
Fast fwd to 2020 when another of our interminable lockdowns ended and we'd run out of freezer food and it was MY birthday. All I really wanted was fish and chips from the takeaway. No cake. Mum was non plussed, but secretly pleased she didn't have to cook or bake for me.
Back to the coconut buns. Well this delicacy, also known as Panipopo, in Samoa, was something I found I missed and I had been looking for years but no bakeries were selling them anymore. They were like the elusive hot cross buns that cannot be sold past Easter Sunday. I thought I had found them at the TopWell Bakery on Swanson Road but they turned out to be the yellow Filipino type buns, and while nice, they were not what I was after. My cousin and I went on a coconut bun hunt and visited at least a dozen bakeries in the West Auckland area and none of them sold any coconut buns.
I'm pleased to report that the Westside Bakery opposite Waitakere Gardens DOES sell these creamy coconut buns for $7 a tray. They also do a good potato top pie, and that was how me and my gardening boss bonded. When I got told by my doctor my cholesterol was high I had to cut down on eating the meat pies, my job was never the same. My meat pie withdrawal meant I no longer had the energy to mow those steep lawns and I lost my spark for being a garden nanny, and I wasn't about to bake my own meat pies because that would just cut into my gardening time.
The moral of the story is. You need food to keep you going so you can do your work. If you find a good one, stick to it. Otherwise its just chicken and carrots sticks and plastic bag juicies for school lunch AGAIN. The Pasifika kids could survive on Hell's pizza, but what wouldn't they give (and do their school work?) for panipopo coconut buns made fresh from the bakery??
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