Pan
Pan Bakery in Longwood isn’t just about the sweets. Sitting near the corner of
434 and 17-92, you can also get various buns and turnovers and fritters and
rolls and meat-filled pastels. None cost more than two bucks. Why is the price
so right? Starch is cheap.
Let’s
start with the buñuelo ($1). It’s about the size and
shape of a racquetball. Dough is fried until golden like a hushpuppy or
fritter, leaving a cake-like interior, though not as sweet. Some buñuelos are
made with a filling like cheese. This one was just plain. Not bad, but a bit
dull.
Next, the empanada ($1.20). The outer crust is made with cornmeal dough,
folded and crimped around a mixture of shredded beef, coarsely mashed potato
and green onion. It’s a little greasy, but you should expect that when eating a
deep-fried pocket of meat. Most everything else is sold room temp, but the
cashier tossed my empanada in the microwave for a few seconds.
The carne (beef) and pollo
(chicken) pastels ($1.60 each) are
big pieces of puff pasty, looking like an apple turnover but tasting more like
a pot pie. The beef pastel is triangular; made with hamburger meat, onions and
maybe a little sautéed pepper. The chicken version is rectangular with shreds
of white meat. I’m usually a beef man, but the carne was surprisingly bland. On
my next Pan Pan visit, I’ll probably go for the nicely stuffed pollo.
My favorite snack is the ham and cheese bun ($1.80). First, it’s
about as big as a can of beans or one fist wrapped around the other. White
yeasty bread dough is wrapped around and under a nugget of yellow cheese and a
thin slice or two of porky goodness. The dough merges with the pork and cheese
for an almost gooey center while the outer 75-percent is soft and chewy. Yes,
it’s a lot of plain bread, but it’ll fill you up.
For dessert, there’s the cheese and guava bun ($.70) and the tres leches cake ($2.50). The bun is
smaller than the ham and cheese variety, with a guava jam smear and a crust of
sugar on the top. The cheese must melt into the bread because I could taste
something salty but couldn’t see it.
If you’ve never had tres leches,
it’s an airy cake that’s moistened by soaking in a mixture of milk, condensed
milk and evaporated milk then topped with whipped cream. I’m a fan because the
cake can soak up all that liquid without getting soggy. Pan Pan’s version might
include a little almond flavoring … or it could have just been runoff from the
maraschino cherry.
Dish: The counter girl was
a little amused by the customer (me) who doesn’t speak Spanish and kept
pointing and asking, “What’s that?” She was very patient, even writing down the
names of several items for me.
Damage: If you can’t
walk into Pan Pan with a five-dollar bill and walk away with a sack of buns and
bread, you’re doing something wrong.
Decision: Pan Pan will
frighten Atkins dieters (are people still doing that?), but the
rest of us can get a lot of bread for not much dough.
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