BnC Cake House [RIP]

Bakery: BnC Cake House
Address: 631 Bloor St., Toronto, ON
Website: n/a
Style: Korean
Price: $-$$

[And with this, all Korean bakeries-proper in Koreatown have died. ;__;  There is still the walnut cookie place (a future CT post; be sure of it... I'm here once a month and I still haven't reviewed it, which is shameful, but it's coming.), but the only place you can still get Korean bean or cream stuffed buns is inside the supermarket; sorry, guys, no more cakes, though]

This is the original/alternate location of BnC Bakery in Mississauga (the review I did of it can be found here), although I'm not at all sure why they don't list this address on the latter's website, nor do I understand what makes one a Bakery (though I'm sure they do actually have baking facilities in Mississauga) and the other a Cake House (which is then listed under BnC Patisserie); the most confusing of all is that both have exactly the same products. However, the experience was slightly different, so I thought I'd review both separately and well, I do need some more under the "Asian" category as well. :P The Korean bakery I once had a few years ago closed down, since I couldn't find anything else except another bakery which had nothing baked on Saturday morning. *pouts*

Just like the first location, the Koreatown location features a bunch of baked goods, individually packed, cakes (like that delicious green tea one) and various individual cakes and cookies. We wanted to try something different, so yeah:

First off, because I really liked it the first time I bought it and didn't get a pic of it, I bought a slice of Opera cake (99 cents/piece), although was a bit disappointed, since in the Mississauga location, you could buy a coffee-cake slab of this strangely delicious cake for, I believe it was either $2- or $3.99. Seeing as the sliver of an individual piece is a dollar, I didn't find this great value, despite the fact that they were advertising this as a "special sale". The cake itself was pretty tasty, although pretty dry (maybe special sale referred to reduced before due date??) and didn't want to stick together. Still, I really like this taste with the alternating chocolate and vanilla cakes with a layer of crumble on top; I definitely don't need the extra calories, but it could have used a wee bit more cream between the layers. Good, but again, not really "bang for your buck" as my brother always says. ;P

We then scoured the store for something decidedly more "Korean"; the vast majority were savoury baked goods, so I had a hard time. I finally settled on a, so the sign said, "red bean doughnut" ($1.49). It was deep fried, so what else could I think it was? I brought it home and divided it up amongst the guinea pigs.. err, the brothers and lo and behold it was far from being a red bean doughnut, but rather it ended up being a giant "croquette", the outside resembling a large tempura, with potato and egg salad in the middle. I'm not sure if someone dumped this in the wrong section (there were other savoury goods in the deep-fried bin) or there were no red bean doughnuts at all, but I just got super disappointed. Seeing as there was more than one when we bought this, I'm assuming they didn't take down the label when the red bean ones disappeared and just slid the rest over. For what it was, my youngest brother claimed it wasn't bad and would make a pretty good lunch. Apparently the egg and potato were separated, since my other brother took a bite and gave the rest to the other, who then found it too eggy and pretty gross. :/ Suffice to say, it definitely isn't what I was expecting, so I'm a little unwilling to return. Sadly, with this and Cobs Bread several blocks away, the bakery scene isn't that great in the Koreatown/Annex area, although I'm really intrigued in seeing if Kensington Bakery, an organic one, has any sweets... Next time, perhaps.

Rating: **