Husband-and-wife team launch Japanese bakery van in Milton
The couple sell bread and sweet treats
A husband-and-wife team have started an Japanese bakery van in Milton to bring some flavour to the local food scene.
Matthew and Shiella Ash launched Lunar Blossom last week, and are based in the car park of the Old House at Home pub in Milton.
“I've always loved baking, so we were like ‘you know what? Lets just go for it’,” said Shiella.
“It was good timing, because I was made redundant from the games industry in 2024. The stars aligned and we thought ‘we’ve always wanted to do it’,” said Matthew, who was born and raised in Southsea.
“We’ve had such a great local reaction. We are very thankful to the landlords here for supporting us, offering us the opportunity. This is a lovely, free open area. There’s loads of people that come around here,” he said.
The couple sells baked goods based on Asian recipes from their van, including matcha cookies and mochi brownies.
“We sell Asian bread and baked goods, because let's be real, flour is not that expensive, it's the work that goes through it, but we’ve noticed a lot of bakeries are so expensive,” said Shiella.
“We just want to offer something small and fresh. I am pre-diabteic so I am careful with what I eat, so I've noticed that my friends who are nurses say that if you make your own bread, you can be more mindful,” she said.
“Its always freshly made the day we are open. We bake some at home, but a lot of it we bake here so they are fresh,” said Matthew.
The couple are trying out new recipes and specials, but their signature is a Japanese bread called shiopan, or ‘salt bread’.
“It’s Japanese but it's very trendy across Asia at the minute. It looks like a croissant but instead of pastry it's bread. When Shiella makes it, you flatten it out much like a croissant, you split it up and wrap it that way,” said Matthew.
“You put a little block of butter, roll it up and then they butter melts and leaves a hollow cavity in the bread that you can put filling in.”
Shiella makes shiopan with ube, a purple yam from the Philippines. “I was very surprised, honestly, that there’s a lot of people that were just going for the purple bread,” she said. They sell the ube shiopan filled with sweet and savoury fillings, including cheese and custard.
They even sell them with sausage, creating a fusion Japanese-British sausage roll. “I wanted to create something people will find familiar but also different,” said Shiella.
Matthew and Shiella have big dreams for the future, but are “taking it as it comes”.
“This place really should represent the community, and our hope is that we’re trying to bring the community together,” said Matthew.
“We’ve had carers and teachers from the local area, and regulars from the pub. We try to match our menu to people’s tastes,” he said.
Lunar Blossom is currently open on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, from 12pm until they sell out.