Hong Kong Island Bakery

Bakery: Hong Kong Island Bakery
Address: 336 Spadina Ave, Toronto ON
Website: n/a
Style: Chinese
Price: $

I was back in Kensington Market and Chinatown a few weeks ago and, having vowed to visit one Chinese bakery each time I'm here until I've gone to all of them, was walking along Dunda, remembering two bakeries that I knew were there and I had yet to try. Well, it seems like bakeries just come and go, since both were gone with no sign of them having ever been there. :/ Going onto Spadina, I popped into Hong Kong Island instead. I'd actually been aware of this place for quite some time (it must be some advertising going on, but when you're zoomed out on the whole Toronto on Google maps and type in "bakery", it comes up as the first option -- it's thus the first thing whenever I try to plan some new and exciting 'tours') but usually bypass this section of Spadina or prefer the other side of the street. Okay, I'm not exactly sure what it is, but nevertheless, this was my first time here.

Like all bakeries in Chinatown, these guys feature the same baked goods, both sweet and savoury. It's easy to get around and it's not insanely overcrowded like others (ahem, Furuma Cake House, which I found wasn't *that* good either): "Western-style" meat and pineapple buns on one side and more traditional, offbeat items on the other, like taro balls and red bean concoctions (whatever that's supposed to mean XD) Compared to a few of the other bakeries, HKI is far from the cheapest with almost everything at around $1/each (versus the 3/- and 2/$1 locations -- it's cheap no matter what); sometimes, this means that the baked goods are actually better in terms of filling, size or overall quality. Not quite sure here. While nothing was bad or worth of complaint, nothing really stood out as being particularly impressive. In short, it's not the greatest place to go to, even in Chinatown.

Knowing that one thing HK does do good is deep-fried, I picked out the doughnut ($0.60) as well as the deep-fried custard bun ($0.90), the latter of which I've never seen before. Actually, it turned out that these two were the best of the bunch and the custard bun deserves especial mention as being really good and one of a kind: nice, crispy exterior and some tasty Chinese custard on the inside.

Less notable were the red bean sesame balls ($0.90/each) which, though alright, were nothing remarkable. Same goes for the red bean "wheat bun" ($0.90) which was, like the deep-fried custard bun, something that I had never seen before. I've been staying away from the buns lately, but this had a purely Chinese sign along with a thumbs-up next to it, so I thought well, it must be something real. In the end, it turned out that it was a fairly plain dark grain bun (one brother said 'pumpernickel') with red beans and black sesame baked into the dough. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough of either and it just came off as a pretty boring... pumpernickel bun. Definitely wouldn't take this one again.

In the rankings of Chinese bakeries in Chinatown, Hong Kong Island isn't exactly the best, but with some classics and some unique baked goods, they're not the worst either. A return trip is certainly a possibility.

Rating: **1/2