Soft breads that have become a viral hit on social media are the focus of a new micro-bakery downtown. Maishokupan bakes Japanese milk breads called shokupan, giving them many sweet and savory twists.
At noon each weekday, Bryson Embernate rolls out a cart of his offerings just outside The Commissary, housed within Sibley Square downtown. The lineup usually consists of cube-shaped shokupan loaves; artful mini loaves adorned with various toppings and fillings; and overstuffed half sandwiches. He closes shop in a half-hour, unless he sells out sooner.
The short hours, like so much of his business and life in general, are inspired by experiences from growing up in his native Hawaii. There, a famous bento shop called Okata Bento is a one-man operation
with brief hourrs and has been fabulously successful since 1981.
If you can't make it downtown in that time window, Embernate has started partnering with local eateries and recently made his debut at the Rochester Public Market.
The name "Maishokupan" is a portmanteau. Pronounced "my," the English interpretation sounds like Bryson's own shokupan. But "mai" also means "every" in Japan.
"One word that describes my approach to my menu development is magic – where delight meets curiosity," Bryson said. "I feel like a lot of food misses that now.”
What's on the menu at Maishokupan
Embernate publishes a new menu at the beginning of each month, with some of the offerings featuring local produce and/or products. Each day of the week brings a different lineup, which repeats weekly throughout the month.
To make the tender loaves, he uses a technique called yudane, in which you stir boiling water into flour, then cool the mixture and combine it with other ingredients in the dough. Yudane is believed to have originated in Japan, which appeals to his own Japanese heritage. The dough is enriched with butter and lightly sweetened with sweetened condensed milk.
"A lot of stuff I do, it's like a hybrid," he said, incorporating both Asian tradition and the American dishes he grew up with. "It’s my bread. It’s who I am.”
The cube-shaped loaves range from classic shokupan, which are usually offered on Mondays, to flavored loaves like the taro sweet potato shokupan, offered on Fridays in September. The loaves may be pulled apart and eaten on their own but are also great sliced and toasted or cooked up as French toast.
The embellished cube-shaped mini loaves are suitable for a single serving. September examples include Monday's mini apple crisp shokupan, filled with local apples and topped with sugar crisp and pie crumble, and Thursday's mini cheddar bacon shokupan, filled with whipped cheddar bacon cream and topped with whipped chive mascarpone.
The half-sandwiches (aka sandos) were inspired by the tasty triangular sandwiches served in convenience stores like 7-Eleven in Japan. Embernate's take on Japanese egg salad sandos were a big hit on Thursdays in August but will be 86'd for September. Instead, Thursdays will bring the terikayki BLT sando, made with brown butter and black pepper shokupan and filled with terikaki-glazed bacon, lettuce and tomato.
In September, melonpan, which have a crunchy cookie crust, will be added to the lineup. These are topped with a sweet cookie crust that's scored before baking. As it rises, it cracks to resemble a cantaloupe rind, thus the name melonpan.
The full monthly menus may be found online at maishokupan.com.
The story of Maishokupan
Bryson Embernate was born and raised in Hilo, on the Big Island of Hawaii. Hilo also is the place where King's Hawaiian rolls originated, which is why Embernate says he's always been addicted to sweet, soft bread.
Embernate is proudly native Hawaiian, Japanese and Filipino. He has a master's degree in indigenous language and cultural education and has taught at the college level.
In 2012, he sold everything he owned and moved to New York City to enroll in the French Culinary Institute there. After stages (unpaid internships) at high-end restaurants, he worked for Hugh Mangum at Mighty Quinn’s Barbeque in the East Village, followed by noreetuh, a modern Hawaiian restaurant owned by Chung Chow in the East Village. But the field's low wages motivated him to return to his language and teaching background and he started work on a PhD.
In 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, he and his partner decided to leave the city. During a visit to Rochester, they fell in love with its diverse population, relatively low cost of living and even the gray skies (Embernate likes their "romanticism and melancholy.")
He started out as an overnight baker at Wegmans as he continued to work on his PhD. That was followed by work in sales training and the purchase of a house. But life came crashing down when he was laid off from his job and also experienced upheaval with the PhD program; he would eventually opt to leave the program.
"When life sucks, bread," he said. He learned recipes, along with the history of the breads, by studying Filipino and Asian cookbooks and historic Hawaiian-language newspapers. He began to envision his own business devoted to shokupan.
In the meantime, he worked for several local bakeries and even came close to buying a local bakery. Finally, he launched Maishokupan within The Commissary, a shared-use commercial kitchen in Sibley Square downtown.
Where to find Maishokupan
Maishokupan is sold from noon to 12:30 p.m. Monday through Friday at The Commissary, next to the food hall at Sibley Square, 260 E. Main St. If he is not standing outside with the cart, ring the buzzer next to the door.
It currently sold at local shops: Mocha House in College Town; Boba Mi, 376 W. Jefferson Road in Henrietta; and The Pawsitive Cat Cafe, 115 East Ave.
Maishokupan has also started selling shokupan loaves (not the mini loaves or sandos) on Saturdays at the Rochester Public Market.
Find monthly menus and pre-order online at maishokupan.com. Follow @maishokupan on Instagram.
Tracy Schuhmacher has been food and drink reporter for the past 11 years. Notice a food establishment open or close near you? Email her at tracys@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: New micro-bakery features viral Japanese milk breads called shokupan
