Furuma Cake and Desserts Garden

Bakery: Furuma Cake and Desserts Garden
Address: 248-250 Spadina Ave, Toronto ON
Website: n/a
Style: Chinese
Price: $

There are so many bakeries in Chinatown (maan, if only every ethnic neighbourhood has this many bakeries in it *___* How happy I would be!) that it's hard to pick which one to review next. I settled on Furuma, simply because it's such an institution on Spadina and it was the first Chinese bakery I tried in Chinatown (well, the Toronto Chinatown at any rate) several years ago, so I thought I might as well return. For some reason which I can't exactly figure out, people flock here like it was the epitome of Chinese baking. It's hard to navigate the island of bins filled with buns and other baked goods, hard to find a pair of tongs, and even harder to actually pay for your goods, simply because there are always so many people running up to the counter. I've never attempted sitting down here, but I'm guessing, from the masses of people in the sitting area, that that would be hard too. This place easily gets the most crowds; at everything above a dollar (omg, how weird that sounds!), it's one of more, if the most, expensive places in Chinatown, although I can't say I was wowed neither by the experience nor by the taste.

It *is* true, however, that it is without a doubt that they do have the most sweet baked goods (hence, I assume, the "desserts garden" ;P) and a fairly impressive selection for a Chinese bakery. There are a few buns and pastries stuffed with bbq pork mostly, but the majority is sweet, not savoury: there's an almost amazing variety of pineapple buns, flaky traditional pastries, sponge cakes, etc. etc.

On my trip, I got three sweet items (6 is tax-free and always earns you a box; with less, they're all squished in one paper bag, with the bbq pork pasty getting stuck in the peaches and vice versa :/): the first was the fairly traditional almond cookie ($1.20), which was quite good ("it definitely wasn't a T&T cookie, that's for sure" was one brother's verdict), but also not superb.

Another purchase with similar opinions was what the bakery called a "sugar ring" ($1.00) and which is... well, a doughnut. ;D A fairly flat ring of moist dough deep fried and coated in sugar. Nothing overly elaborate (nor overly Chinese, for that matter ;)), but still good.

I'm afraid the same can't be said for the "peach butter cake" ($1.20) which was a small loaf cake made of fairly typical Chinese "cup cake" dough (i.e. sponge cake) topped with a few slices of canned pieces. First of all, the butter should be crossed off the description, but, honestly, I can't say I was expecting it. Secondly, sponge cake (almost every Chinese bakery has cup cakes, so that's the dough) is always -- and should be -- nice, fluffy and moist. This one felt soft and fluffy as a whole, but once you starting cutting into it, the dough was strangely dry and crumbly -- definitely not what I was expecting and not too tasty at that.

Overall, with so many options in the immediate area, I don't think it's worth the time and effort to fight through the masses of people to get into this place. Besides, I need to get some more reviews up here as well. :)

Rating: **1/2