 Are Asian inspired bakeries the future? Could it be more popular than Bobo? And could it be so popular Asian flavors just take over bakeries in general? Yeah, we got to talk about this because if you guys have been following Asian American food trends at all over the past one, two, three, five years, you know that this is the hottest trend in Asian America, Andrew. We're talking about French pastries and Asian flavors and Asian themes mixed together. Two things that used to stay completely separate. Oh, I'm over in my zone. Yeah, I'm over in my zone. And then they're coming together to create just a whole new genre. I'm talking about a hundred Asian American pastry shops opening up between Canada and America over the past five years. I mean, matcha tarts, ube tarts, yuzu tarts, petite chose with hoji choc cream inside, guys. Now, also, we want to note that even some Western style French bakeries are maybe starting to incorporate a little bit more Asian flavors, like maybe a matcha croissant in there or two. So, guys, let me tell you this. This is reaching non-Asians. This is not just a trend amongst Asian Americans. You're saying this is not only in Asian enclaves. I think this is an industry trend, and a lot of the chains are coming from Asia. But anyway, guys, we're going to talk about why this trend is so popular, why Asians love baking so much, and is it going to continue and just impact the world? Because maybe Asian flavors are taking over, period. So please hit that like button. Check out other episodes of The Hop Hop Boys as we get into some food talk. Okay, so the founder of Subtle Asian Baking Enter, which was an offshoot of Subtle Asian traits, started in about 2018, 2019. She just gave a big interview, and the article's kind of going viral in the Asian baking world, where she's sort of talking about how she spearheaded the digital movement to highlight this mix between the East and the West that previously was not seen before. Yeah, well, let's talk about David first. We got to give some reasons why Asian bakery items are so big right now. And we're not just talking about your old school Hong Kong style bakeries where you can get your, you know, your Chashubao and, you know, your Dantat stuff like that, which are classic. We're talking about, we're not talking about the mixing from the colonial British days of Asia. We're talking about more like modern day, modern French pastries being mixed with modern Asian flavors. So why is this so popular? Why is it trending and why could it take over? Number one, I think this is popular because it allows people to be way better than their mom, way better than their dad, way better at their grandparents than something. They get a spearhead something because obviously older Asian people, generally, they are not that well versed in the French pastry game. Yeah. Right. No, but then they're not necessarily as pan Asian either as the Asian Americans. So the Asian Americans are pulling from like all around Asia plus all around Europe and converging it. Using my newly acquired French techniques, I can wield the power of all of Asia. Right. But America's in there too, you know, brownies and cookies and more like what we call murrican type foods. Number two, Andrew, do you think it is easier to spread culture and it's more accessible to spread it through sweet things than through savory things? Yes. First of all, I think when you make Yuzu, Ube, Matcha, when you make these things into cream, I mean, how many people are going to say no to be honest? But if you're like, oh, do you want to drink a cup of Hoji Cha? People are like, I don't know what that is. But hey, guys, this is Hoji Cha cream inside of a cream puff. Do you want to try it? They're like, all right. Yeah. I also think that it's just easier to work with baked sweet items than it is raw meats and all these perishable items in the savory world game. Let's be honest, guys, any type of weird food that Asians have, it's usually not the cold food. It is usually the hot savory foods. Durian though. Durian is the exception. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Number three, Andrew, I think it's very Asian American. So it allows us to separate ourselves from chains from Asia as well, because they've always had, you know, France or, you know, the Portuguese, they went to Japan in like the 1400s. There's always been some mix, you know, Castella cake, tiramisu, but this gets to feel very, very Asian American. Yeah. I mean, are you talking about kind of like how Koreans did Paris Baguette and to Le Jour, or also how Taiwanese people did 85C, which are all very popular. And they are like inspired. Well, obviously Paris Baguette, that's supposed to be more French, but 85C, for example, is kind of like your next level Chinese bakery. Yeah. Yeah. But I think it's, it's too, it's very Asia Asian. But this is like the next generation. This is a lot of like Hokkaido, milk bread, a Zuki, Ube, if you do Ube, I always say that's very Asian American, because it's very Asian, Pan Asian American to incorporate Ube from the Philippines. Yeah. Shout out to the Filipinos. Point number five, Andrew, I think it's actually open for anybody. And it's really anybody who can think outside of the box, because the startup costs are not as high as like opening up a restaurant. Yeah. And I think it's funny, like you were saying, like I think a lot of Asians, they're not going to necessarily out stir fry their parents, you know, like parents, they just stir frying is just one of those working around a hot walk is just one of those skills that like- It's hard to be uncle, bro. It's hard to be uncle. Justin Immigrant wants to do that. But I'm saying now that you, your dress, you're trained or inspired by the French, bickery is patisserie. Like you get to, you know, do that. Right, right. The uncle doesn't necessarily have the cutology skills that you need. No, no, no. They don't know the little cream. Point number six, Andrew, I think that people were really looking for the next thing after Boba. Do you agree with this? There, I remember so many articles, people thought for a second it was going to be, you know, Mango Sago from Hong Kong, that definitely didn't take after Boba. Literally Boba has been popular for what, 10, 20 years. I think people were waiting for what was the next evolution that was going to be the next food trend to emerge from like Asians born in America. Yeah, I think a lot of people look at Boba as, it's just a drink and it's very heavy. But once you fuse it with the French techniques, and I think one of the reasons is Asians love French culture and French techniques, because it's very clean and very high, high skill level. And it's almost like they were exposed to French culture and Asia, Andrew, before they were even exposed to British Anglo culture. Oh, that's a good point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And point number seven, Andrew, like you said, it's very cute. And a lot of Asians who are homebodies, they get to like show their dominance of the kitchen. Dude, have you ever seen an inside the oven footage of bread rising and baking in an oven? It honestly looks cute, because they just turn from this little ball and then it just expands and becomes this nice, perfectly round, yeasty, soft, fluffy thing. You're saying whole cute, whole fluffy. It's so tiny, cute. Yes, you can make them into bears and tutoro and all this pandas. Moving on to the bad side, or I guess just things that are not as good about it, I guess. Number one, Andrew, it can be unhealthy, because a lot of baked goods, they use a lot of what? Shortening, they use a lot of butter. Would you say, I mean, I guess a bodybuilder would be like, yeah, bro, there's a lot of like empty calories in there. Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's definitely a dessert, a luxury thing. It is definitely some calories. I mean, I feel like French people, if they're not considered overweight, it's because they might eat like one croissant a day and that's like half of the calories that you consume. You're saying you're going to be hitting up high on your calorie metrics, high on your carbohydrates metrics, but probably not on your protein, and it might not leave you feeling that full. Guys, let's be real. If you eat rice every day at home with your Asian family and then you go eat croissants, like matcha croissants with yuzu cream, I'm like, yeah, you're packing on a lot of cows. Point number two, I think that, to be honest, savory foods more so represent the culture even more than sweet foods. I mean, some people are going to be offended by this. No, but it's true because, listen, you're just taking yuzu, the fruit, and then just making it in a cream and then putting it into a croissant. That technically is not that Asian, aside from the yuzu aspect, but yes, obviously the fish sauces, the chilies, the gochujangs, the, you know. You mean the things that just grew from the earth in Asia, right? That is very Asian, yeah. Point number three, Andrew, not all of the fusion baked items are necessarily good or thoughtful even though it's cool that they exist. I mean, I do think a lot of people are like making pandan, everything. A lot of people are making ube, everything. A lot of people are making yuzu, everything. I think those are cool, I love trying them, but yes, obviously some are more complex and thought out than others. Yeah, I think the biggest thing with pandan is sometimes you don't have enough pandan flavor because the amount you need to extract to flavor something is like tremendous. But you know what takes some thought, David? Is some durian, if you're going to use durian, you got to make it good. Oh my goodness, you can mess that up so easy, but it's fire when it works out. Point number four, Andrew, sometimes something that Asian Americans like and Americans like means that Asian Asians won't like it. So you're saying a lot of these Asian-inspired bakeries, you're saying a lot of the internationals or the immigrants. I think the older immigrants can't really get into it, but I think the younger ones who are the international students, I think they like that stuff. And obviously it depends on how you fuse your items. If you make a matcha brownie and you cover it in chocolate, deep fudge, Nutella, and then you put more powdered sugar on it, that's going to be too sweet for most people from Asia, even young people from Asia. I mean, honestly, I think I would find it hard to find anybody in the world that doesn't enjoy a croissant. Yeah, because croissants are not that sweet to be honest. Yeah, literally, but like literally that is just a form that is just unanimously delicious. Point number five, Andrew, is there too much emphasis on sweet things? Because let's say, for example, Asian fusion bakeries, Asian French bakeries or whatever is the next big wave as long as well as Asian gelatoes and Asian ice creams, Asian sauce serve. If we just go from boba to Asian sauce serve from Thai rolled ice cream all the way to Asian French pastries, does that mean that all Asian Americans are capable of producing that is like by everybody? It's just sweet things? Yeah, we're soft. That's what it would mean. It would mean that Asians are soft. Yeah, I mean, I'm half joking, but like, yeah, obviously like I love sweet things, but you know, sweet fluffy cute things, boba and all these fluffy croissants and the bows and stuff. I mean, yeah, I mean, it's cute, soft stuff, to be honest. Point number six, Andrew, is the market big enough to support this many second gen fusion shops? You know, I mean, short answer is David, no, some of them are going to close down. We already know some that didn't make it. I know some that probably are not going to continue to make it. New York is a very competitive place, obviously in a high rent. It's very hard to operate here. Right, and anytime a trend booms, right, it kind of blows up and then there is contraction. Yeah, I mean, a lot of people are going to try a lot of things, David, and they may fail or they'll have to switch out those items, but they might pivot and adjust. It is what it is. It is what it is, but I'm looking forward to people trying. And last but not least, Andrew, some people say that the Asian flavors and the cool look of everything don't live up to the visuals. They say that the whip is frothy, the flavors are too light. Obviously, because Asians typically have a culture of like, not too sweet, not too sweet. We don't want things as sweet as Europeans do, right? So I guess, is that going to, is that an issue? Yeah, but I think, again, that's going to be of the trial and error. Like, to be honest, like a lot of the stuff, like you eat with your eyes first nowadays, you know, in 2023, your camera eats first, blah, blah, blah. It's got to look great, but then you bite into it and a lot of it is underwhelming, but that's where all the trial and error from the chefs come into play. So yes, not everything using French techniques is great. What do you think about Cat Liu's perspective that as a lot of non-Asian bakeries, or bakery teams where there's like one Asian and five non-Asian people, begin to incorporate more Asian influences, what, how respectful should people be of the terminology and the language? Or even how respectful should an Asian be about another Asian culture? So for example, Cat was saying like, hey, you know, I try to be respectful. Like if there's, if it's, if you call something Tonkatsu, like ramen, like it has to have pork because that's what it means. That's literally what that word means. If you call something Bun Mee Bowl and you want to make something Bun Mee flavored, it should have bread because bun is literally means bread. You know? So basically you have some accuracy and have some respect for the items that you're inspired by or referencing. Not just call it like another Asian word just because, you know, obviously if it's Ube, it should be Ube flavored. I think that's pretty obvious, but I think if people are like, oh, this is a Japanese something, something like it should be respectfully something Japanese or like a dango should actually be the right thing. A dango not just a thing on a stick. Right, right. So I think that yes, as Asians, I do think we have a little bit more of a responsibility to be more precise, accurate and sensitive to other Asian cultures, not to say that we don't respect other cultures and you can't just take a French thing and just make some, oh, this is a croissant and it's not a croissant because that's not going to make sense either. Guys, please let us know in the comment section below what do you guys think of these new Asian fusion pastry shops? Do you have one in your city? Like I said, there's probably been a hundred of them that opened up in North America, between America and Canada over the years. I think a lot of them are in the Bay Area. A lot of them are in NYC, a lot are in LA, but I've started to see other cities like Seattle, Houston, Philly, Boston start to get them as well. Oh, they will come to your city. If there are Asians there, some Asian will learn how to bake. I mean, if not trained at a French culinary school, they're a home chef. I've had some amazing Asian ube and pandan cupcakes from a Vietnamese woman who literally was baking them in her house and then sold them to a full shop in 626. Oh, man. Those were great. Yeah, I remember back in the day, Andrew New York was all about magnolias, cupcakes, Andrew what, beard papas, which was from Japan, juniors cheesecake, and then it sort of shifted, Andrew, rainbow bagels, cronuts, levain, you know, Martha's Country Bakery. Then the Japanese concepts came like the mochi donuts and the taiyaki as well as some of the Asian chains, toulajours, et cetera. But really, Andrew, now we have entered the true fusion zone. So we're just going to go over some of them and pop up some photos, Andrew. Cora is Filipino baked sweets. And I'm telling you, Andrew, they're really focusing on ube everything. They got like a quadruple ube donut. Oh, right, the ube wave, man. I love ube. There's this place in Flushing called Gungan, Andrew, and they focus on some really freaky looking desserts. Like that's their thing. They want their pastries to look out of this world and unlike anything you've ever seen before in your life. Yeah, you know, we know that people like to eat with their eyes first. So we just want to give them something monstrous to look at. Shout out to Spot Dessert Bar, Andrew. They sort of were one of the originators of mixing what like, you know, high-end 10, 20, $30 desserts with Asian flavors. Yeah, no, no. Shout out to them. I mean, they got a lot of locations and they do an amazing job. Ceremonia is a Filipino one in Brooklyn. And they like, you know, some of these places, Andrew, they look more like Western items, but then it's matcha green or ube purple. But then some of these, they almost look like something you've never seen before. Ceremonia is more going for something that you've seen but with Asian flavors. Bounanas, Andrew. This is Asian-infused pudding. Fire. Pond on by Lauren. I believe Lauren also, she did a pop-up during the COVID and she was serving out of her little apartment from COVID and now it's a whole spot. Bon Bay. This is via desserts in Brooklyn. Of course, they're sort of modernizing it but keeping it a little bit more traditional. Lady Wong, Andrew, is Malaysian-Chinese. They've got traditional kueh, which is from, you know, the Pernikins, but they've also got like just like some new items. This is Ronnie Chang's favorite dessert in the world, I think. Um, lisi. Lisi is a super famous- Bro, lisi sells out, man. I pulled up to lisi twice. I still have not gotten in. They sell out in probably like their first wave, like in two hours or something. Dude, I have not seen this many yappies pressed to get something. I saw people like sweating bullets. They're like, oh, my girlfriend really wanted these. They're knocking on the door, shaking it. Yappy problems. 75 degrees, Andrew, is Chinese-owned and you know what they really love there, Andrew? They love the things. And this is controversial. They are shaped like other things, like shaped like animals, right? Whether we're talking about cute little teddy bears, cute little Frenchies or Gudetama. Do you support making delicious things in the shape of cute animals and then eating them? Okay. I feel torn about it because I definitely know that Western people frown on it, but I'm okay with it. It seems fun. It seems fun. Some of them look pretty realistic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. Hopefully we can move past that phase. Andrew, Alimama does boba cream puffs that are actually filled with actual boba pearls. Delicious. Patisserie Tomoko, Andrew, is really, really high-end Japanese-French things. I think actually some of the chefs are from Japan. Takahachi is also a chain from Japan. They do this matcha crepe burrito. Harb Soho. Yeah, very good. This is from Tokyo as well. Bibbul and sip also sort of cartoonish. Almost anime-inspired. Shout out. There's also bao tea house that's down here. There's terms of endearment. Oh, they do, Andrew. A matcha croissant filled with matcha. Over in K-Town, you got Gray Street Bakery. Very big. You can chill out. It's pretty. Matcha beignets. Oh, you got purple dough. We actually went here. This is over in Queens. It's very good. Ando Patisserie. This is a new kind of like international student-led one. What? Fujinese Taiwanese, right? Yeah, but they're doing some really cool cooking. What do you think about this? Because, Andrew, they use a lot of rosong. Like, they use a lot of pork floss in their dessert items, which really would appeal to people in Asia. But as far as America goes, people are looking at that like, hey, honey, what's going on here? Yeah, I think the pork floss is going to be a niche thing for acquired people. But I mean, I don't know. Pink Lady Cheese starts over in Chinatown. You got Spongies Cafe, Cam Hing, the classics of the little Chinese, the canto sponge cake. Do you like two Lajor's better or Paris Baguette? For yourself? For the major Koreans. Between the two, I like two Lajor's. Butter Dose is Taiwanese-owned. It's delicious. They do a Goma Black Sesame Cream Puff, Andrew. Tidama does matcha shortbread. This is actually my favorite shortbread in the world. Like, matcha shortbread. If you do a good matcha shortbread cookie, that's what I want. Interesting. Multi-sweet, Andrew. What do you think about these chains? This from Hangzhou, I believe. And they're also doing a lot of stuff with pork floss. Lady M Cake, Andrew, is a huge international chain originally started in New York City by a Japanese woman named Emi Wada. Guys, Dominic Ansel. Now, he is not Asian himself. His wife is actually Asian, but I do think Dominic Ansel is incorporating a few more Asian flavors into his bakery. You know why? Because he has a Dominic Ansel in Hong Kong that does a ton of Asian flavors. But what they realized is they started bringing some of the recipes from Hong Kong to the New York location. Shout out to the VLT Cake. Fire. Haven Cafe in Chinatown, Andrew. They do a scallion pancake bagel that is based off of Tsungyobang, and they do dragon fruit lemon squares. And Burro is a Japanese cafe where they put grapes and cakes, obviously influenced by the Japanese Fruitsando. And taste cream does mango, sago, you know, and French triple layered cakes. But then, so on top, Andrew, it's like HK desserts. But the, you know, the bottom part is French. Yeah, hit them up over in Long Island City. All right, man, David, that was just, I think that's, you hit a lot of the main ones around New York, but obviously there's a bunch in LA. There's a bunch in Seattle and the Bay Area. I think there's some opening like every month. Yeah, I think, David, all right, real quick, before we go though, I want to ask one question. Who does this trend help and who does this trend potentially hurt? Now, with the trend of new Asian bakeries, is the market just expanding? Is the pie growing for all of the thirst and the hunger for these items? Or is it going to replace possibly some other bakeries, whether it's the Cantonese, like the old school Cantonese, Taiwanese bakeries, or the American bakeries? Well, I do think that it eats a pretty sizable chunk out of the old school bakeries that our parents and our grandparents went to with the fruit melon, wedding, Asian cakes. Those are delicious, but at the end of the day, I'd rather have them be replaced by something than have them go away and have them replaced by nothing. Like, because at the end of the day, I just don't know how much Asian Americans were trying to eat the same things that their grandparents ate. Because, of course, our taste buds are a little bit more Westernized or Europeanized because so much of America's baking heritage was from Europe. You know what I mean with the chocolates and things like that. Also, I will say this, Andrew, I think Hong Kong with the, you know, like in Malaysia, they were doing like all the fusion mooncakes. That was like sort of the beginning, where you're starting to take an old school Asian item and modernize it. Yeah. So that's almost something I'm more interested in as well because right now we're talking about the fusion between French pastries and Asian flavors. What about modernizing some of the old school desserts like a mooncake? Well, you guys, let us know in the comments down below what you think about this new trend. What is your favorite Asian bakery? Shout it out in the comments down below. There are a ton out there. Obviously, like, man, I just think a lot of Asians go into baking and they love baking and they train in the baking schools. Andrew, fusion Marta box from Indonesia. That is up next. And I see, I've seen those coming. So everybody, thank you so much for watching. That is our Asian food talk, the hot pop boys, Asian bakeries, they're taking over the game. Let us know what is your favorite Asian fusion bakery in North America in the comments section below or around the world, whatever country you're in. And until next time with the hot pop boys, we out. Peace. I love the Asian bakeries. They're so cute.