A not-very-long queue would form outside the bakery around mid-afternoon just as the buns were about to come out of the oven. The packets of freshly made dark kaya (coconut egg jam) already sat packed in little plastic bags. The freshly made loaves with crusty tops were sliced and sealed.

I’m certain the Pereiras weren’t the only ones – once they got home – hurriedly slicing the still-warm buns and slathering on them lashings of thick kaya. And proceeding to devour the buns, one after another, until they were all gone.

Alas, that old bakery is long gone. As is that tradition.

Imagine the delight of rediscovering that same kaya, still double-boiled over a low fire for 10 hours. It is made by Hoo Jee Suan who owns the Teng Wun Bakery & Confectionery with his wife. Their bakery has achieved cult status. Even tour buses jam the street while the tourists clear the bakery of sponge and butter cakes and their very famous kaya puffs. These puffs are filled with that same kaya that Hoo used to make at the old bakery when he ran it with his sister after their father passed away.

“They were wood-fire ovens. We can’t even find wood these days,” he said when I tentatively enquired, breath held, “Why don’t you make them again, those buns?”