DECEMBER 2 ― I am sure plenty of you scoffed at the recent hilarious social media hullabaloo over a small bakery and its croissants. 

Le Bread Days, a neighbourhood bakery in SS2, was once just a tiny bakery that sold, among other things, croissants. 

What made the bakery’s croissants different were the various fillings that included strawberry cheese, peanut butter, almond and salted egg yolk custard. The latter suddenly became the talk of social media, a viral sensation.

Salted egg yolk buns or liu sha bao are a familiar dish at dim sum places. You could call it the salted caramel of dim sum — savoury and yet sweet, a double delight for the palate.

A blogger happened to document her ordering Le Bread Days’ croissant version of the liu sha bao and well, things went a little mad.

It was as though suddenly Malaysians were all beset with a craving for salted egg custard encased in French pastry, with queues lining up for the limited supply of the croissants.

Supply and demand being what it is, of course there were people who were turned away, and left disappointed.

This being the age of social media, deprived customers then vented their displeasure on the bakery’s Facebook page.

Here is a selection of some of the comments left on the page:

“I did not even go for their molten croissant... i just wanted to try their croissant sandwiches and that also they were out of stock for 2 consecutive days that i went...Will strongly recommend NOT TO VISIT this place..”

“You should cater to your customers’ demand. We don’t understand why your croissant asyik habis when we went there. Buat la banyak sikit. Haiiyaaaa...”

You would think the croissants could cure cancer, arrest the downward trend of the ringgit or locate the source of a certain really large political donation.

For a nation that regularly tolerates poor service standards, why are so many people being unhappy about croissants being sold out? Perhaps it is rather symptomatic of our society and how easily we fuss about ridiculous, frivolous things.

Take the hypocritical stance over vaping and the passive acceptance of cigarettes and smoking. There are conclusive studies that show cigarettes are harmful, plenty of evidence tobacco companies have falsified information and tried to hush up their products’ harmful effects, but let’s just admit that Big Tobacco is untouchable and we just really like their money, even if they make it by killing people.

Why isn’t there a hue and cry on the streets? Why aren’t people lobbying for the ban of cigarettes? 

Instead we have people acting as though a bakery being out of a particular croissant has ruined their lives.

It is OK to be angry. But why must we fritter away that passion, that energy, that righteous drive on baked goods? 

Go forth and get your salted egg yolk craving fulfilled elsewhere. Or just wait until the other bakeries finally cotton on to the fact there’s a demand for fusion frou-frou pastry with pau fillings. I await the stampeding crowds for macha red bean baguettes and sambal nasi lemak danishes.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.