Ultimate Shio Pan Guide – We Tried Shio Pan From 20 Local Bakeries In Klang Valley To Find The Best

Best shio pan in Klang Valley review

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Bread isn’t usually the go-to carb for Malaysians. We love our mixed rice and bowls of noodles and will have them at any time of day. But with viral creations like the shio pan making an appearance at bakeries abroad and now locally, too, you might want to swap your regular visit to a hawker stall for a drop-in at a bakery.

To help you find the best in Malaysia, we visited 20 bakeries in Kuala Lumpur (KL) and Selangor to try their shio pan and bring you this review.

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What is shio pan?

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You might be wondering – what’s the difference between a shio pan and a croissant anyway?

For the uninitiated, shio pan (塩パン), or salt bread, is originally Japanese. It’s now a popular menu item at bakeries internationally, particularly in Korea, where it takes on the name sogeum-ppang.

This bread features simple flavours that are usually centred around just a few key ingredients – butter, salt, and a touch of milk – with the texture of its dough the highlight of sinking your teeth into one. The top and bottom of the shio pan take on a crisp crackle thanks to the butter, while the inside remains soft and airy.

Some bakeries have turned the shio pan into a carrier for sweet and savoury fillings, but it is enjoyable on its own.

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20. Kefi Kohi 

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Seksyen 19, Petaling Jaya

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Kefi Kohi is located discreetly on the third floor of a shoplot in Section 19. This coffee house offers coffee and non-coffee beverages, alongside light bites, including the shio pan for just RM8.

The shio pan here is smaller in size in comparison to the ones served at other bakeries – it’s just slightly larger than a palm. There’s no seeming presence of butter embedded inside, with butter served separately on the side instead.

However, in terms of texture, Kefi Kohi’s shio pan didn’t have the usual crisp, crunchy exterior layer common to shio pan. The dough was soft and boasted a chewy texture, with a slight resistance when torn apart.

Overall, the bread itself had the salt element as it was evenly seasoned, but did not have that signature ‘butter hole’ that’s distinctive of shio pans.

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19. Chef Kecik Boulangerie

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Pudu, KL

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Chef Kecik puts the kecik in their shio pan, as theirs was by far one of the smallest salted butter rolls on this list, only fitting about half a human palm. And for RM8.10 per piece, we were expecting the taste to make up for the size.

The dough was tough and dense, and the amount of melted butter that pooled in the cavity was a bit too much, giving an overly greasy taste to the bread.

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18. The Baking Xperiment

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Subang Jaya

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While the shio pan at The Baking Xperiment looks the part, it certainly doesn’t taste the part. The salted butter bread roll (RM9) itself was not salty and buttery enough to be considered a salted butter roll.

The dough itself was also quite dense and chewy. In short, it just tastes like a piece of regular bread with a slight sprinkle of butter and salt.

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17. Osha Dan Terra

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Shah Alam

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Located in Shah Alam, Osha dan Terra’s shio pan (RM7.50) fell short of our expectations for a great shio pan. It left something to be desired, as we found the bread roll to be overly greasy.

One touch of the bread, and your fingers are covered in slick butter that is reflected in the taste. Moreover, the bread did not possess the distinct pillowy and airy quality that is a typical trait of a good shio pan.

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16. Kona Bakehouse

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SS2, Petaling Jaya

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Next up on the list is Kona Bakehouse, tucked away in PJ’s well-known SS2 neighbourhood. Unlike Kefi Kohi, Kona Bakehouse’s shio pan (RM6.50) had an even golden colour distribution across the bread, a sign that it’s been baked at a highly controlled temperature.

Appearance aside, the bread itself was soft, but it did not carry that prominent buttery and salty flavour that’s common in a shio pan. Simply put, it tastes like regular bread with a really dense dough.

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15. Smith Bakery & Cafe

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Bukit Kiara, KL

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Next on the list is Smith Bakery & Cafe, with their shio pan coming in at RM7 each. The bakery’s rolls look and feel like regular bread, possessing a denser bite compared to the other shio pans we’ve tried.

Unfortunately, the shio pan here tasted like a regular bread roll and missed the mark for several criteria on our list. It didn’t possess a crunchy, hard crust, and neither was it salty at all.

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14. Giraffe Cafe & Restaurant

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Sunway Geo, PJ

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Next on the list is Giraffe with their shio pans. Their salted butter rolls amount to RM7 per piece, with a sweet taste profile.

They were also slightly more heavy-handed on the butter part, making it more greasy than usual.

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13. Eleven Moon Cafe

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SS 19, Subang Jaya

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Subang Jaya’s Eleven Moon Cafe comes in at eighth place on the list with their shio pan for RM7.50.

Their shio pan is the stock standard of all shio pans and doesn’t disappoint by nailing all the key elements of the roll: buttery, soft, and salty. Perhaps the only shortcoming is that their bread isn’t as light and buttery as most shio pans, and has a drier texture.

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12. Shio Artisans

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Sri Hartamas, KL

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Located on the mezzanine level of Matahari Building next to a wellness centre, Shio Artisans bakes up palm-sized sourdough variations of your typical shio pan. They cost RM6.50 apiece and are worth every penny.

The sourdough rolls had a slightly sour, yeast-like flavour and a slight dense chewiness to the rolls that made them stand out from the rest on this list. The salted butter rolls also had that distinct hollow cavity that’s a hallmark of shio pan, a result achieved after leaving a block of butter to seep and flavour the dough.

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11. Universal Bakehouse

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Damansara Kim, Petaling Jaya

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Coming in next is Universal Bakehouse’s shio pan (RM8). Their bread was also fairly large in size, coming in slightly smaller than Buttersome’s.

What stood out to us was how light and airy the dough was. It felt as if we were biting into a pillow. The bread also had the right amount of butter, without being too overwhelming.

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10. KLCG

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Medan Pasar, KL

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Most pastry lovers need no introduction to KLCG. The well-known local bakery, with multiple outlets in Klang Valley, recently brought back their shio pan (RM7.50) after taking them off for a few months. The shio pan was sufficiently salty, but fell short in the butter department, as the rolls were quite dry, resulting in a dense dough.

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9. Buttersome Bakery 

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Seksyen 17, Petaling Jaya

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Entering the top five of this shio pan ranking is Buttersome Bakery’s shio pan (RM6). Located a stone’s throw from Kefi Kohi, this neighbourhood bakery also had the largest-sized shio pan out of all the places that we tried on this list.

Size aside, the bread itself had a highlight crispness to it, with a crackling bottom that was generously coated in sesame seeds for some extra crunch. While a tad saltier than we would have liked, the shio pan hit all the right spots, with a strong, satisfying presence of butter, a pillowy texture that was divine, and a nuttiness from the addition of the sesame seeds.

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8. Sunsan Bake

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Taman Shanghai, KL

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Located in KL’s Taman Shanghai neighbourhood, Sunsan Bake operates out of a residential house turned into a cafe.

Besides dishing out typical cafe meals, they also readily bake a variety of pastries, including shio pan (RM8.80). Their shio pan has adequate levels of salt and butter in each bite, earning it the 8th spot on our list.

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7. Orito

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Sri Hartamas, KL

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Orito is situated on the second floor of Sri Hartamas’ Plaza Damas. Their shio pan rang up to RM8 each, and it met all the criteria of what a good shio pan should look and taste like.

With an even layer of golden crust throughout, the exterior was crunchy. Within, the bread was slightly dense, resulting in a satisfying chew in the dough. The bread had a subtle butter flavour throughout, and was evenly salted in each bite. It was also the saltiest roll we tried on the list.

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6. Provisions

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Damansara Jaya, PJ

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Situated next to Atria Shopping Centre, Provisions has shio pans for RM7 a piece. For some, their butter rolls might be too salty and buttery.

However, the excess butter and salt were just enough and weren’t strikingly overbearing on the palate. Additionally, the rolls also had a satisfying crunch with each bite.

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5. Adough Atelier

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Sri Hartamas, KL

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If there was a crazy rich variant of shio pan, Adough Atelier’s shio pan would fit the description, as these bread rolls cost RM10 a piece. Boasting a glossy sheen over its golden crust with a generous sprinkling of coarse sea salt, these salted butter rolls taste as good as they look, too.

After biting through the bread’s crunchy exterior, our teeth met airy and fluffy bready goodness that made each bite feel like biting into a soft pillow. Taste-wise, the bread was sufficiently salted, and the butter flavour was present.

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4. The Bread Project

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SS4, PJ

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Located in SS4, The Bread Project is a fairly well-known bakery among PJ locals that has been baking freshly made salted butter rolls since it opened.

The bakery keeps stocked a few variations besides the plain salted butter rolls, with some filled with taro and red bean, to name a few. But their plain salted butter bread rolls (RM6.50) excel, boasting a delectable crunch while having just the right amount of butter and salt.

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3. Cafe Gentle Mess

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Taman Desa Aman, KL

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Tucked discreetly on top of a hotel is Café Gentle Mess, better known for their stacked bagel sandwiches. However, they also carry a decent stock of shio pan, too, which receives its own share of praise from patrons.

As most people would say, never judge a book by its cover. This certainly applies to Café Gentle Mess’ shio pan.

The bread rolls bore the same light, airy quality and salty, buttery taste, similar to Adough. For that reason, we crowned it as the runner-up of the list, as it was cheaper than Adough Atelier’s, priced at RM7.50 each.

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2. Sunny Side Up Cafe

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Brickfields, KL

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Meanwhile, Sunny Side Up Cafe serves up one of the best shio pans in KL, but unfortunately the cafe is quite literally tucked away. To get to the cafe, you’d have to walk through the parking lot of the Riviera City building in Jalan Tun Sambanthan.

Each salted butter bread roll cost RM6.50, and it was worth every cent. Besides the rolls looking like perfectly golden brown parcels of dough, they taste just as good as they look.

The golden brown crust gave a nice textural contrast to the airy and fluffy dough while not being too overbearing with the butter and salt.

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1. DouDou Bake

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Taman Rasa Sayang, Petaling Jaya

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The number one spot goes to SS4’s DouDou Bake. Their shio pan (RM6) ticked off every box in our checklist, even with its visuals alone. It had a tempting glossy, buttery sheen as part of its golden exterior, and a generous sprinkling of flaky salt on top.

The shio pan was a textural sensation upon first bite. The bread’s crisp exterior was reminiscent of a flaky croissant, and its contents were soft and pillowy, which was complemented by an even distribution of butter and salt.

Given that it has one of the lowest prices, as well as taking taste and texture into consideration, this shio pan tops our list.

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– Bonus shio pan spots –

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If you’re looking for affordable shio pans for under RM5, you can get them at these bakery chains across Klang Valley:

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Verrona Hills

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For only RM3.90 a piece, Verrona Hill’s shiopans taste as good as they look. Their salted butter rolls are hefty and boast a slight buttery crunch with each mouthful.

While the dough leans on the denser side, the shio pan here has a satisfying soft chew if you’re into that sort of texture. The bread is also evenly seasoned with butter and salt throughout.

Full list of Verrona Hills outlets here.

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Barcook

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While Barcook’s shio pan is the smallest of the bunch, it certainly doesn’t miss the mark on quality. At only RM3, their salted butter rolls had an even distribution of salt and butter in each bite.

Moreover, their dough was by far the fluffiest and lightest one we’ve tried on this list so far. If you’re craving for more than one shio pan, Barcook’s rolls are the ones to get if you don’t want to feel the butter crash after.

Full list of Barcook outlets here.

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Lavender Bakery

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Looks can be deceiving, and that description fits Lavender Bakery’s shio pan. It missed the mark on almost all the criteria for a good shio pan. And while it remains in the under-RM5 shio pan bunch, it’s slightly pricier than the other bakery chains on this list, with a price tag of RM4.50.

While the bread roll looked perfectly crisp on the top and bottom, we found it to be rather dry and doughy. The bread also tasted like it had little to no butter embedded in its dough, and tasted like regular bread minus the salt and butter.

Full list of Lavender Bakery outlets here.

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Komugi

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Next on the list is Komugi, which we found to be the second-best shio pan from the affordable bakery chain options, coming in at RM3.90 per piece. It bore all the similarities of Verrona Hill’s shio pan, with a tad more butter, resulting in a slightly greasier mouthfeel.

The dough was also less dense and fluffier than Verrona Hill’s salted butter rolls. However, we found the salt in the bread to not be evenly distributed, with some bites having more salt than others.

Full list of Komugi outlets here.

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TOUS Les JOURS

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Coming in as the most expensive and last on the list of affordable chain shio pan is TOUS Les JOURS’ shio pan (RM4.90). While it does have a slight sprinkling of flaky sea salt on top, that’s as far as its likeness to a shio pan goes, as the bread had zero butter.

Instead, it tasted like a typical loaf of bread, fluffy and pillow-like without the signature outer crust of a Japanese salted butter roll.

Full list of TOURS les JOURS outlets here.

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Best shio pan from bakeries in Klang Valley

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Not all shio pans are created equal. Despite their simplicity, it just shows the different methods these bakeries use to achieve the same bread. The next time you’re craving this trendy Japanese bread, you’ll know which spots to pick.

Also read: We Tried 5 Of The Best Hokkien Mee In George Town, Here Are Honest Reviews From A Penang Lang

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Cover image adapted from: TheSmartLocal Malaysia

Photography by Brooklyn.

This article was first published on 25th May 2026, and was updated on 26th June, 1st September, and 3rd September 2026. Last Updated on 12th October 2026.

The post Ultimate Shio Pan Guide – We Tried Shio Pan From 20 Local Bakeries In Klang Valley To Find The Best appeared first on TheSmartLocal Malaysia – Travel, Lifestyle, Culture & Language Guide.