H Mart

Bakery: H Mart 
Address: 5317 Yonge St, North York ON (and several other locations)
Website: www.hmartca.com
Style: Korean
Price: $ 

Last week, I visited Koreatown North for the first time. Well, this isn't entirely true, as I had driven past this stretch of Yonge between the 401 and Steeles (and it really continues onward into Thornhill and Richmond Hill), but it was the first time I had actually parked and walked a few blocks where the highest concentration of Korean businesses were located... only to find that there just aren't any bakeries. *pouts* Okay, so that wasn't the sole purpose of my trip there, but I still came away with two semi-bakeries. :) The first of the two was H Mart, North York (H Mart Finch is located a few blocks away) which is a Korean supermarket with several locations throughout the city, mostly in the Yonge St vicinity. These two, being smaller, are more reminiscent of convenience stores and seem to get their nonetheless impressive selection of ready-made food from the larger branches. The baked goods, in particular, come from the big H Mart in Richmond Hill (which I've gone to multiple times, but never tried seeing as, well, I'm more interested in the other bakeries on the plaza ;)), but it was still an opportunity.

All locations carry quite a number of typically Korean sweet buns (the majority of which are filled with pastry cream ^^), cakes, and larger loaf cake-like creations, filled with red bean or walnut. The buns are especially cheap, all of which are $1.50 or under; therefore, very well priced. I'm not sure about the big store, but the North York location had no signs or labels, so I uh, picked out this one ($1.30) because... I could see there was cream on the inside.... which is very shameless of me, but Korean cream buns are very yummy. ^.^

Sadly, I opened it up and could instantly smell peanuts. Personally, I'm not sure what the almonds were doing there, since almonds and peanuts just don't match. But that might just be because I don't like peanuts. Yes, I don't like peanuts so this peanut smell was pretty unpleasant. Turns out that it was peanut pastry cream and lots of it. A cross between whipped cream and peanut butter, and I wasn't exactly loving it, but that's partly my found for giving in to my creamy urges. XD Nevertheless, I tried a piece and gave the rest to one brother.

Overall, it wasn't the greatest, even disregarding the peanuts. The dough wasn't as fluffy as I had come to expect from Korean bakeries, slightly denser and not so moist, but at least it was loaded with cream... and hey! I was a little frustrated that this isn't my first time coming to a Korean bakery and not having anything explained or having things wrongly labelled! :/ Taking everything into consideration, it was alright, but not the best I've had.

Rating: **1/2