Manila Bakery

Bakery: Manila Bakery
Address: 40-C Dundas St E, Mississauga ON
Website: n/a
Style: Filipino, Asian
Price: $

Manila Bakery is the second Filipino bakery I know of in the city; actually, I knew about this place for ages, though it's in a slightly out-of-way location (the address says Dundas, but they're actually around the corner of the first street east of Hurontario, across from the KFC/Pho mi 99/Indian supermarket plaza) and I've just never made the small walk here from the Krakow deli parking lot (there's a small mall in between with the best Korean food in the city -- Se-mi fast food *-*). Well, I finally made it and, let's say, I enjoyed it a lot more than my first taste of Filipino baking at Fv foods. One reason for this is that Manila Bakery is actually a bakery and not a hot food counter, deli, etc.: the smell of freshly baked bread can be smelled from half a block away and it smells GOOD! Walking into this teeny tiny bakery is like sticking your face in front of a loaf straight from the oven, it's so warm and aromatic, with people in the back running back and forth, baking. Seriously, all bakeries should be like this! :3

Anyways, Manila's selection isn't very big, but it's fresh and it's uh, fluffy. There are a three racks of goodies, packed in sandwich bags, priced and, most importantly, all are sweet: sweet buns and breads that are similar in style and texture to Chinese baking, but slightly different and a tad more expensive... and it definitely beats a whole bunch I've been to. ;)

As for those purchases: I got for myself a pandesal (sweet bun with sugar on top -- $1.40) which is pretty much an ensaymada without that cheddar cheese on top. ^^;;; The dough is the same, but the difference between Fv, which was pretty stiff and yeasty, and Manila was obvious. The latter's dough was just super fluffy and fresh; you just rip into this thing and tear it apart into soft shreds. And that, add onto that, the topping which isn't just sprinkled sugar, but sugar creamed with margarine (or oil; I'm sure it wasn't butter) slathered on top and pooling in the cracks. Mmmmmm... simple, but so good!

Besides this, I got a loaf of munggo bread ($2.75), which is a sweet, though not too sweet white bread stuffed with a sort of mung bean mass. This tasted, as both my mom and one brother attested, similar to Chinese bean breads and was, though probably not authentic in any way, the best when toasted with a little butter.

Finally, I got a pack of three coconut buns ($1.60) which don't look very exciting from the outside (hence a very boring photo -_-), but when heated, seemed a big hit with everyone. The centre is stuffed with fried coconut and when you do warm it up a bit, the coconut gets chewy and it proved to be a hit!

After the extra old cheddar cheese sprinkled on top of half the goods from my first trip to a Filipino bakery, I gotta admit I was pretty wary of trying another place, but after going to Manila (the bakery XD), I 'm a lot more satisfied and well, I won't wait so long for a return trip! ;)

Rating: ***