Neo Coffee Bar

Bakery: Neo Coffee Bar
Address: 161 Frederick St, Toronto ON
Website: http://www.neocoffeebar.com/
Style: Japanese, European
Price: $$$

Neo Coffee Bar is a European-inspired cafe with Japanese-style baked goods, made in-store by them and featuring organic ingredients whenever possible off King St E, in the St Lawrence Market neighbourhood. I read about them a couple months ago and, given the fact I'm always eager to try new Japanese bakeries -- the amount of Japanese bakeries that have opened up in Toronto in the past few years is a wonderful thing *-* -- I was really looking forward to this one.

In-store, I found that although they're touted as a bakery/cafe, their selection of baked goods is limited; the selection of "Japanese" baked goods even more so. This is limited to what I assume is their signature product: various flavours and sizes of cream rolls found in many Asian bakeries, along with cookies, cream puffs, and croissants. Did I miss something? I don't think so. The prices are certainly up there and it's not that easy to pick out something affordable for the budget-challenged.

 Many items, though not all, contained matcha and, seeing as I'm always a sucker for matcha baked goods, these were a must-try. The first was the (small) matcha red bean cream roll ($14). This was matcha green tea sponge cake dough rolled with pastry cream and whole azuki beans. The slightly sweet cream was delicious, as was the soft and fluffy green tea cake, though the taste of the cream overpowered the more subtle flavours of the cake. Personally, I didn't think the beans, tossed in here and there amongst the cream really fit the soft texture of everything else; they were a bit out of place.

The matcha and white chocolate ($2.75) cookie was a nice treat with big chunks of white chocolate and a flavourful green tea cookie; nice and buttery, which is always good. However, the butter was a bit inconsistent and some parts were very buttery and affected the taste of the cookie. Loved the combination, good taste, but I'm not sure if it's necessarily worth how much you pay versus what you get, especially in comparison to other Japanese bakeries.

Rating: **1/2