KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 5 — I found the Facebook fiasco over Le Deux Garcons in Bangsar earlier this year somewhat amusing and cringeworthy at the same time.

How the series of rather petty, gruff exchanges escalated to the level where it is now a casebook study for global PR companies to use as an example of how NOT to engage social media is perhaps the best indication as yet of how fatuous and self-centred modern society has become.

All I know is that Le Deux Garcons is the best contemporary French bakery in KL when I got a present of a box of their cakes from a friend; I hadn’t expected it to become a worldwide phenomenon (in a somewhat farcical, absurd way).

Last weekend, I had the chance to accompany a friend who was visiting the factory in Taman Desa which produces the cakes for Le Deux Garcons – and meet Ben Yeong, the gentleman behind the Facebook misadventure.

We arrived in the middle of a rainstorm and Ben himself came out with umbrellas to usher us in. That was a good start, I thought, as we shook hands wetly – he was obviously not too arrogant to do front door duties.

The inside of the factory, nestled in a row of nondescript shop houses, is best described as a baker’s wet dream -- I do my own feeble attempts at baking at home so I know about baking wet dreams.

Ben genially explaining a fine point in baking.

The front part is currently being renovated into a café but the main factory itself can only be described as pretty darn cool. The worktops are solid thick slabs of Arabescato marble from Italy. Why such expensive worktops? “Because we need the temperature to remain low and this special marble keeps everything consistently cool,” explained Ben casually.

The kitchen is done out in solid steel, with customised stainless steel cabinets, just so that he can insert the trays at his preferred levels. Isn’t this rather expensive and over-the-top? “Yes, I guess – a little bit,” he mumbled back. And added a little defensively, “But it is the most efficient way to stack our cakes.”

The ceiling hangers are all made from the same steel as well and do look extremely functional. And cool, especially to a part-time amateur baker like me.

Ben planning his next, even better batch of croissants.

There was an elaborate sheeter – a special device used to roll and cut pastry into very thin sheets. This device is the main reason why we are here. Ben explained, “We are going to produce our own breakfast pastries for the morning working crowd – and you are going to sample the croissants!”

The sheeter is apparently also mandatory because it takes 768 layers to make a proper mille-feuille, explained Ben – and he intends to make a proper mille-feuille. To complement the sheet is a proofer, another special machine where dough can proof at the correct precise temperature and humidity.

The butters he is experimenting with for croissants.

The sheeter and the proofer together cost well over RM 20,000 but Ben said the main cost of his soon-to-launch pastries isn’t the machines – it is the time, as it takes 24 hours to make a batch of croissants the way Ben wants to make it. Perfectly.

So I approached the sampling with a tiny little bit of trepidation – I had told my friend earlier that I won’t lie and if anything tasted wrong, I will report it. My friend -- who knows Ben rather well -- just laughed. Now it should be mentioned that my wife is French and I have spent a lot of time in France and also worked in Paris, a place heaving with extraordinary boulangeries, patisseries and cafes.

At this juncture, I should also say that the croissants you get in the bakeries and shops in KL are actually rather limp, insipid facsimiles of the real thing – especially that detritus which is sliced open and stuffed with ham or cheese. No self-respecting patissier would touch that stuff.

Kah Mun, Ben's assistant. Another perfectionist – only quieter.

No, a real croissant is lovingly constructed with over a hundred layers of fine thin pastry rolled deftly into loops to make that classic horn shape – and the layers of pastry when baked should make a sweet, crisp crunchy sound as a knife cuts through it.

It is a subtle cadence – and Ben’s croissant made exactly that same sweet, crisp crunchy melody, just like in the best patisseries in Paris, as the knife sliced through it. The texture was also pretty perfect, with a light bounce throughout each airy bite, the flavour of the butter melting out on the tongue.

While we had absolutely no complaints, Ben himself was a little more circumspect – he said he prefers another butter to the Lescure used in the current croissant. He brought out another block of specially-imported butter and proceeded to explain about the difference in fat content (82% vs 84%), etc., etc. I have to admit that I didn’t catch all of it as I was still busy stuffing my face with the rest of the croissants.

Ben’s assistant is Kah Mun, a quiet, calm, pretty young lady who is every bit a perfectionist as Ben. She is a full graduate from the exceedingly prestigious Culinary Institute of America and had done a stint in a top restaurant in New York City.

On returning to KL, she obviously had the pick of any baking establishment in KL but she chose to work with Ben because his dedication and philosophy resonates the closest to her own quiet determination to be at the top.

“Ben’s place is also the best equipped – even some top hotels here don’t have sheeters and proofers as they cannot afford the 24 hours of time it takes to make a proper batch of croissants,” she explained.

It seems that Ben’s croissants have 108 layers of pastry so when wound into the classic horn shape, the crown will have 432 layers of pastry – it’s simply astonishing to observe this level of detail in KL, let alone Paris.

The beautiful textures of a real croissant.

Ben had thought of expansion and there is no lack of businessmen willing to work with him to open new bakeries in prime locations around KL. But their ardour cools quickly when they find out about Ben’s meticulous requirements and inability to compromise over quality. “They wanted me to make cakes at the same price point as other bakeries,” he explained heatedly.

“I just can’t do that. Why can’t they simply understand that I cannot produce anything of lesser quality than what I am producing now?” he sighed, frustrated. I quietly sighed too, but in relief, as this means the extraordinary quality of his cakes and pastries will not be jeopardised for the foreseeable future.

The visit ended with Ben demonstrating the construction of the 5th layer of a chocolate marquis – this is when I learnt that I had been melting chocolate the wrong way for years. It seems that using a bain marie to melt top quality chocolate (like Valrhona) is not a good idea as the steam circulating over the chocolate can condense over it. So now you know.

We had kidded around the Facebook issue and he laughingly said his friends now won’t even let him log into any form of social media. I haven’t known Ben long (less than an hour) but I am tending already to side with his friends, for his earnest quest for perfection often compels him to say exactly what is on his mind – a man like Ben simply does not suffer fools easily, nor have to time to do so. But actually, when chatting, I found that he has a really good sense of humour, surprisingly self-deprecating in nature, and he is rather harder on himself than people realise.

In the end, a genuinely unique gentleman baker like Ben should just focus on making the finest possible French confections in KL -- and simply let his creations handle the social media.

To the truly knowledgeable, discerning people in KL, Ben’s creations are far more worthy than a bunch of snide comments on a web page. You know, in the end, life is too short to care about everything – it is barely long enough to care about the few details that do matter – and for me, a really, truly exceptional piece of cake matters rather more than some other rather nugatory, transient stuff.