Shio Pan Showdown: Butter Town vs Provence vs Gokoku

The humble shio pan has seen a surge in popularity recently, with more and more bakers offering the buttery, salty treat. What are shio pan (塩パン)? In Japanese, “shio” means salt, and “pan” refers to bread, so it basically translates to “salt bread”. These bread rolls are created by wrapping butter in the dough, so that when the butter melts during baking, it “fries” the bottom of the bread, creating a unique crispy, brown bottom that should crackle when bitten into.

Today, I decided to compare the shio pan offerings from 3 different stalls: Butter Town, Provence and Gokoku. I’ll only evaluate their plain, or original shio pan – that means no flavours, toppings or fillings, just good old salt and butter.

I will also judge the bread by how they fare as-is directly from the store, and after they’ve been reheated in an air fryer.

Butter Town is located in Holland Drive Market & Food Centre. They specialise in shio pan, both plain and with fillings, as well as cakes and pastries. 

They bake everything from scratch fresh, and stock is rather limited, so being early is recommended. They also limit the number of bakes each customer can have, and after I picked up my shio pan, a line began to form, with several flavours selling out after.

My next stop was Provence, which was not too far away at Raffles Holland V Mall. Provence is a Japanese bakery that’s been around since 1999, so they have to be doing something right.

Provence offers 2 types of shio pan – the regular type, and another made with whole wheat. Interesting, but I was only after the regular one, of which there were just a couple pieces left. Lucky me! Bread secured, I make my way down to the third location.

Gokoku is a little different compared to Butter Town and Provence – they’re part of a chain, and have multiple outlets in Singapore. They’re also a Japanese bakery and sell a variety of both sweet and savoury pastries, bakes and buns. The outlet I visited was located at Great World.

Gokoku’s shio pan offerings include not just the plain variants, but they also have a few with fillings – there’s peanut butter, rennyu (condensed milk), and red bean.

Room temperature comparisons

I laid out the 3 different shio pans on a tray, and the size discrepancy was immediately apparent, and almost comical. Gokoku’s Shio Butter Pan (S$2) was the longest of the trio, followed by Provence’s Salt Butter (S$2), and Butter Town’s OG Shio Pan (S$2.20). If we compared solely on a price to size basis, Gokoku is the winner. 

Appearance-wise, Provence had the most photogenic pan with its beautifully textured, golden brown exterior. Butter Town’s looked (and felt) a lot like a plain butter roll.

The cross-section of the pan revealed that Provence’s had a concerningly dense interior, with a tiny space in the middle that was probably where the butter was (I believe this contributed to the taste). Gokoku had the largest cavity, followed by Butter Town. 

I sampled these halves of the shio pan at room temperature.

Butter Town’s had the softest, fluffiest texture with a good buttery flavour, but the upper crust lacked any of the characteristic crunch that I expect from shio pan. The bottom was also not as crispy. The salt crystals gave an intermittent, intense burst of saltiness that kept the bites interesting.

Provence had the most dense interior, but the bread itself was disappointingly plain, lacking butter or salt taste minus the salt crystals on top. There was barely any butter taste, and the bottom also lacked the “fried” texture.

Gokoku had a very buttery interior, and even though it was not sprinkled with salt crystals like the other 2, the saltiness had been spread evenly throughout the shio pan itself. The exterior also had some of the expected crust, and a fairly decent crispy bottom. 

Reheated comparisons

Shio pan are best had when they’re fresh out of the oven, and while that’s not always possible, our next best solution is a short stint in an air fryer or oven.

I placed the other halves of the shio pans into my air fryer, and set it for 4 minutes at 180°C.

Once the air fryer was done, I then took the reheated halves out and placed them on the tray again.

All of the shio pan were significantly better in texture after the reheating process, gaining a crispy exterior and improving the “fried” bottoms.

Butter Town’s lost its soft butter roll texture and gained a satisfying crackle. I did not notice any improvement in overall flavour, but I would say this particular shio pan benefitted the most, texture wise, from a quick blast in the air fryer.

Provence’s did not see any significant flavour improvement – in fact, the reheated shio pan ended up reminding me so strongly of a baguette that I was left feeling very confused. It took on both the texture and flavour of one, and it just emphasised the lack of butter in the bread.

Gokoku’s also benefitted from the air fryer. It became deliciously crusty all around, with the buttery interior shining through even more thanks to the heat. The bread was also slightly chewier.

Verdict and final thoughts

It’s hard for me to define a clear winner, but the long and short is that my overall choice would be Gokoku. Gokoku has both price and portion going for it, as well as being more accessible in general due to there being multiple outlets. 

Butter Town is a very close second, particularly due to how delicious the pan becomes when it’s been given some time in the air fryer. I didn’t mind the softness of the room-temperature bread too much, but I’d opt to reheat it every time instead for the best experience. 

Provence was, unfortunately, the last on the list. It did not meet expectations in both taste and texture, despite being very aesthetically pleasing.

Obviously, all this is purely subjective and based on my own personal preferences – but if you have any shio pan suggestions that I should check out, do send them my way. The more the merrier, I say!

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