Filipino bakery’s addictive sweet bread now available in Brentwood

If you’ve ever tasted fresh Filipino “sēnorita bread,” you know why far East County residents are excited that a Starbread Bakery has opened in Brentwood.

One sniff of the warm, oblong yeasty roll — fresh from the oven and oozing with butter and sugar — and an innocent onlooker can easily become hooked, unable to eat just one of the soft and fluffy, airy treats.

Now Brentwood has become the latest outpost to score these addictive rolls that have attracted a cult-like following, with Starbread Bakery open on Friday and a grand opening set for Saturday morning. The new bakery, which also has a store in Pittsburg, is at 50 Sand Creek Road, a few doors down from the Filipino grocery Mabuhay Filipino Foods & Services.

“They call it ‘crack bread,’” said one Brentwood resident who declined to give her name, but was excited to hear the bakery was opening just steps from the Filipino grocery where she was shopping on Thursday.

“You can’t just eat one,” added Cynthia Ruehlig, who had also stopped by the Filipino market and was happy to hear about the new bakery nearby.

Cyrielle Carrera-Sanchez, who works at her father Carlito Carrera’s Pittsburg store, said he decided to open his second store in Brentwood because it was the most requested location. Their customers now come from all over East Contra Costa and beyond.

The new store, located in the Sand Creek Plaza shopping center, will have all the familiar menu items, including chicken and beef empanadas, pork adobo buns, fruit and meat-filled croissants, pan de sal, and sugary dulce de leche breakfast buns, as well as malasada, bicho-bicho and more.

Founded in 1986 in Vallejo, the family-owned Starbread Bakery has more than a half-dozen – and counting – locations in Northern California, with sēnorita bread its flagship product.

A native of the Philippines, Ruehlig said she’ll likely visit the new Brentwood store, as it will be closer to her Antioch home than the Pittsburg site. But in addition to sēnorita bread, she’s looking forward to the empanadas and the pan de sal, a Filipino roll that’s known as a classic breakfast or midday snack.

“That’s what we eat for breakfast,” she said of the fluffy, slightly sweet bread rolls. “It’s like buttery bread. It’s really nice if you put a little more butter inside.”

Husband Walter Ruehlig said pan de sal rolls are his favorite.

“I tell Filipinos, especially if they’re visiting the United States, ‘If you want a business over here, make pan de sal. There will be a line down the street.’”

The classic buns also attracted Rebecca Sandoval, who stopped in Pittsburg to buy some of them along with empanadas and senorita bread, the latter in a big box for her uncle who was celebrating a birthday.

“He loves them,” she said. “He can eat a whole box on his own.”