How this Hongkonger’s bakery is giving a remote Canadian town a taste of the city

Drive about an hour north of Vancouver and you will reach Squamish. The quiet town in the Canadian province of British Columbia is known as a mecca for rock climbers and mountain bikers. One of the area’s famed natural landmarks is Shannon Falls – among the tallest waterfalls in the province – and straight across from it is the Klahanie Campground, where visitors can not only enjoy a picturesque view of the falls but also buy Hong Kong-style snacks and drinks. Unique Slow Rise Bakery serves pineapple buns, egg tarts, dim sum and Hong Kong-style milk tea, and has attracted not just Chinese visitors but also a growing non-Chinese clientele curious about these items. “We’ve had Caucasian locals come to me to say, ‘I want a bolo yau [pineapple bun with butter],’” says co-owner Unique Chan Ying-ching, 29. “Our mission is to bring Hong Kong flavours to the community.” Chan and her husband, Filipino-Canadian Gabriel Saguindan, 32, who have been running the cafe for almost two years, are planning to open a second location in June in downtown Squamish. The cafe’s menu includes items such as cocktail buns, barbecue pork puff pastry, char siu-filled pineapple buns, wonton noodles, xiaolongbao and special items like chocolate-filled dumplings and black sesame lattes. Bakery beginnings Chan, who was born and raised in Hong Kong, visited Vancouver in December 2021. While there, she went on a trip to Whistler, a well-known ski resort north of the city. It was her first time seeing snow, and Chan, who was working for athletic apparel maker Lululemon’s flagship store in Hong Kong at the time, was mesmerised by the ski village, comparing it to Hogwarts from the Harry Potter world. While there, she dropped by the Lululemon store, which was where she met Saguindan – one of the store’s managers – who at first tried to sell her something. “We actually asked each other out at the same time for that night,” Chan recalls. “So there was already a connection there. We wanted to get to know each other, but never with the expectation of ‘When will I see you again?’, because I knew I was going back to Hong Kong.” Hong Kong was still under heavy Covid-19 restrictions at that time, and like many of her friends, Chan was looking to move away from the city when she met her future husband. They began a long-distance relationship, but quickly moved to close the gap: by March 2022, Chan had crossed the Pacific, and by August, they had tied the knot. The couple moved to Squamish, halfway between Whistler and Vancouver, where Saguindan continued to work at Lululemon and Chan filled her time by learning to make focaccia from YouTube videos. Her speciality now is 30-hour slow-rise focaccia, where the dough is left in the fridge to rise for more than a day before baking. “The structure and texture are a bit different,” she says, “more airy, with more air bubbles in it, more chewy, versus dense.” She planned to sell it at farmers’ markets, but first, they needed approval from the local health authorities, which they could only get by producing the Italian-style bread in a commissary kitchen. That led them to find one at Klahanie Campground. “This campground has a long history,” Chan says. “They used to have full restaurants back in the 1960s and 70s. The kitchen is old but functional, and that was perfect for us because we didn’t want to invest a lot, but we wanted to start right. So that was like a perfect opportunity, and I feel like we got lucky in that sense.” With a kitchen secured, the couple began selling their bread at farmers’ markets, but the cost of transport and labour led them to consider developing the space itself into a bakery-cafe. They also changed their focus to Chan’s Hong Kong tastes – cocktail buns, pineapple buns, milk tea and dim sum. Chan commissioned a Vancouver-based friend whose family makes dim sum for restaurants to create special items – vegan dim sum, shrimp and pork dumplings – for her. They also expanded the menu to include wonton noodles, crispy pork belly, barbecue pork and roast duck. ‘I never thought that would happen’ Chan says when she first moved to Whistler and Squamish, there were few Asian cuisines available, which allowed them the space to create their own niche. Now, while some customers still ask why pineapple buns do not have fruit in them, some regulars know to ask her for a slab of butter to go with theirs. “You know how proud I am when they tell me exactly what they want?” Chan says. “I never thought that would happen in Squamish.” The campground kitchen at Unique Slow Rise Bakery has its limitations – operations are dependent on weather, there are no dine-in options and there are no toilet facilities for customers – which is why the couple are expanding downtown. The upcoming cafe will have indoor and outdoor seating, toilets, and new items on the menu that Chan is developing, such as house-made croissants with Asian flavours. Chan’s days are long. She makes the buns from scratch, deals with contractors, plans new menu items and catches up on paperwork. Still, considering that she had never baked or cooked before she moved to Canada, it is quite a success story. Chan, whose parents separated when she was a child, was raised by her father, with a domestic helper looking after her. “I never really needed to cook, and there are so many food options in Hong Kong. But, luckily, I am a foodie,” she says. “I remember what things are supposed to taste like, so it’s easy for me to kind of replicate that flavour and texture.” Launching and running Unique Slow Rise Bakery has shown Chan’s family that she is capable of starting something from scratch. “As a Chinese kid growing up, I never felt like I was good enough to have my parents’ approval. They never said, ‘I’m proud of you,’” she says. “But my dad actually visited me last summer, and he was so impressed. “I felt like my dad was proud of me, trying to spread a piece of Hong Kong in Squamish.” He even put in a good word with her grandmother, who has since invested in the new cafe. “It’s slowly turning into a family business, and I don’t want to let my family down,” Chan says. “I want to make them proud.”

How this Hongkonger’s bakery is giving a remote Canadian town a taste of the city

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Unique Chan’s Hong Kong-style bakery attracts many non-Chinese customers curious to discover dishes like pineapple buns and egg tarts

Unique Chan’s Hong Kong-style bakery attracts many non-Chinese customers curious to discover dishes like pineapple buns and egg tarts