#FeedMyPhoneInstaMeet at Lucullus Bakers & Roasters

Fellow foodie and instagramer @feedmyphone has been arranging foodie get-togethers in a while now.  Anh was invited to one of Patrick’s recent instagram meets, which he calls “instameets” and uses the relevant hashtag #feedmyphoneinstameet, and also invited me as her plus one! 🙂    

It was an hour-long event and we arrived for the 9 p.m. event at Lucullus Bakers & Roasters on a Friday evening.  (We had just arrived from our dinner at MeNami so this post-dinner event was perfect for us to check out as part of our Friday night festivities.)  I had previously blogged about this cafe and bakery which you can read in the hyperlink.

#FeedMyPhoneInstaMeet on April 8, 2016

Patrick organized an ice breaker game for us to get to know the other instagramers to start off the night.  It was one of those games where you had to ask others to see if they fulfilled a certain criteria on your list and once your sheet was filled up with names of people who “read Harry Potter”, “wears contacts”, “knows how to skate”, etc., we could rip up the name portion of the sheet to put into a raffle draw.

There were a lot of instagramers and foodies in the house!  I am not a big instagramer as much of a true blogger at heart.  I love having new experiences, photographing it with my camera, and then writing about it to produce blog posts here on stenoodie.  There are so many types of “bloggers” and food “instagramers” nowadays that almost anyone can be labelled a ‘food blogger’.

Patrick giving a short introduction and Stone Yu speaking

Beautiful European styling at Lucullus

With that said, I met a lot of instagramers that I had never met before at previous “foodie events” and learned what their instagram handles were.  It was nice!  I’m sure many of them have not heard of @stenoodie either haha.  It was a good chance to expose each other’s social media accounts and get to know one another.

Shortly, we were given some samples of Lucullus’s chrysanthemum tea drinks.  I really liked this hot drink because it was not too sweet and infused with the chrysanthemum flowers.  It tasted especially good after our carby meal at MeNami too! 🙂

Chrysanthemum tea

All of us were invited to the kitchen for a behind-the-scenes demonstration

A major component of our visit to Lucullus was to see a baking demo of the Chinese buns that they make at Lucullus!  This was pretty cool.  We all got to enter the kitchen and get a behind-the-scenes look at how they make their buns.

The pineapple bun or “bor lor bao” in Cantonese is one of the most popular and well-known buns in a Chinese bakery.  It is a simple bun that is covered with a crispy top and very soft throughout.  No, there are no pineapples involved in the making of this bun at all despite the name.  When it is baked, the top of the bun just looks like a pineapple pattern. 🙂

Buns galore!

The baking demo begins!

A thin sugar dough draped on top of each pineapple bun as part of the finishing process

Baker Stone Yu showed us all how to roll the flour, sugar, butter, and egg yolk combination and flatten it using a cleaver in order to put on top of the pre-made buns.  He showed us how to do it and then let us participate in it as well!  We took turns and also used a brush to do an egg wash on top of the bun.  He said that the pineapple buns took no more than 12 minutes to bake in the oven (they use different ovens than the ones we have at home) and they produce over 700 of these each day!

Using a cleaver to thiny press out the sugar dough

Covering the pineapple buns with the sugar dough

Doing an egg wash over the buns to complete the process

Egg wash complete!

Mexican buns

Mexican buns

Next, we also got to see how the “Mexican bun” was made (墨西哥包 in Chinese).  It’s also known as a crispy sweet bun in English, but the Cantonese translation of this bun is a “Mexican bun”.  We took turns squeezing the sweet part of the mix on to the bun.  This was fun.  It tested our culinary skills too. 😛

Afterwards, the buns were all done and we all got to try them freshly made from the oven (after lots of pictures first, of course).

After 12 minutes in the oven, the pineapple buns are done!

More photos!

Hot and steamy buns

Last shot of buns before we dug in

The pineapple bun was so soft and delicious since it was hot and fresh from the oven!  It tasted so good!  I haven’t had one of these in a long time actually.

Golden crusted pineapple bun fresh out of the oven

Mexican buns are done too!

Plump Mexican bun

The Mexican bun was also great too.  There is no meat in either one of these buns.  Simple and classic. 🙂

One of the most beautiful Chinese bakeries in Markham

With that, the one hour of the instameet had come to a close and the second round of instagramers arrived for the 10 p.m. slot.  We mingled a little bit more with the foodies before we headed out towards home.

Thanks again Patrick for organizing this.  It was really neat to get to see how Lucullus Bakers & Roasters makes their buns.  I was most recently here to have breakfast with my friends — we had their rice combos and I even mentioned in that blog post that I wanted to try their Chinese buns one day.  I guess that came true for me! 😀

Local talent thank you cards. The design of the card mimics the tiles of the bakery! :O

This location of Lucullus Bakers & Roasters is located in downtown Markham

Have you been to a Lucullus Bakery before?  They have many locations all across the Greater Toronto Area.  Leave your comments about your experiences below!