A simple lunch @ Panash Bakery & Café (Harbour City), Hong Kong

It's that time of the year again: summer vacation. My boy's been out of school for two weeks now, so my hands are fuller than usual. Our European trip is coming up very soon, and I've been madly scrambling to get the finer details of our itinerary down-pat before we get on the plane. It's not so easy when I've had to navigate French and Italian websites to get the information I need! Hubby is away overseas this weekend, and today I decided to make things a little easier for myself by bringing the 4.5-year-old out to lunch after church rather than eating in. He said he wanted sandwich, so we headed over to the only bakery I know in Hong Kong that bakes bread that is safe for him - Panash Bakery & Café. All other bakeries that I've encountered cannot guarantee their breads are nut-, peanut- and sesame-free, and certainly not the breads sold in supermarkets (which are cheaper but contain additives and preservatives that I don't want my little boy to eat). I get bread from either of the two Panash bakeries in the Tsim Sha Tsui area, but there are other branches elsewhere. It's very popular, and both TST branches have a café adjacent to the bakery selling various dishes ranging from light snacks and sandwiches to more substantial items like burger, pizzas and pastas.

The boy and I shared a Panash Original Club Sandwich (HK$68), which was big enough to fill us both. I was informed that this usually comes with bread that contains sesame, but the kitchen was happy to fulfill my request to use a sesame-free bread. While the white sandwich bread tasted good enough, I must admit that I would love to try the original version, which looks like it's made with delicious-looking Turkish bread. (The two times that we'd given Middle-Eastern food to the boy, he had reacted badly afterwards - so no Turkish bread for him for now. I'm glad the waiter double-checked the bread ingredients with the bakery which is separate to the café's kitchen.)

The club sandwich was a triple-decker, nicely toasted with omelette, pressed roast chicken/turkey, processed cheese and the usual lettuce, tomato and cucumber slices. Each quarter was topped with an ingredient - pickle, olive, cherry tomato and bacon:

The boy ate his lunch quite happily, so the outing was a success! We made an impromptu visit to the nearby Toys R Us store where he had fun while I secretly grabbed a couple of items for the upcoming long-haul flights.

[Prices quoted above excludes the 10% service charge]

Panash Bakery & Café
Shop OTG04
Ground Floor, Ocean Terminal
Habour City
17 Canton Road
Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon
Hong Kong
Tel. +852 2327 7071