Address: 1177 Central Parkway W, Mississauga ON
Website: http://www.btrustsupermarket.com/
Style: Chinese
Price: $
Gah! I think this is my last bakery to review for now, which means I'll (finally) get down and do some international destinations (I *still* haven't gotten to Estonia -- unbelievable! .___.;;;), but in the meantime:
Btrust is a Chinese supermarket with one store in Mississauga and another in North York. They're a smaller store and, to be honest, their hot food isn't so good, so I was a little reluctant to try their bakery, which is tucked into one corner of the store and actually contains a pretty impressive (especially given its size) selection of Chinese baking classics, some more unique treats as well as goodies brought in from other Vietnamese, Filipino and Korean bakeries. Not bad. They're slightly more expensive than T&T, but it's a matter of ten-twenty cents usually.
Anyways, I'm actually not sure if they have the facilities to bake their own stuff, but nonetheless, I decided to take a few things from their bakery, all of which looked pretty good from the very beginning. Three things, to be exact. ^^ First of all was the daily special that day: the "Hokkaido milk bun" ($1.49) which is called a 'steam cake' in T&T and which comes out on the Btrust receipt as 'teddy bear cake' or something like that. It can get confusing! Either way, T&T has this exact cake in their bakery and, oddly enough, this one tasted identical, right down to the little teddy bear stamp and the imprint of the metal racks on the bottom. Was this baked by the same people and distributed? O.o Or is that just the foolproof recipe that's made in exactly the same way each time? It didn't bother me all that much, since this is probably my favourite thing from either bakery! I love these things. :3
Lastly, when I bought this, I thought I'd write down the name and I overestimated my memory skills, because I don't remember what this was called. I could have sworn it was a Jiangsu pastry ($1.09) (it excited me that Jiangsu is an actual region!), but an image search gives me nothing, so I must have gotten the name wrong....
Again, strangely enough, T&T has the same thing, packed up in bags of four... I was there yesterday and I should have checked the name again. I'll have to update this again when I do get that name. Anyways, I saw those four-pack bags in T&T and always wanted to try this based on the Chinese name (and the fact that there really aren't that many traditional baked goods that are plain, without any stuffing), the description on the back of the bag ('memories of my hometown' and similar... silliness ;D), and the list of simple ingredients, but never wanted to take the risk of getting four and not liking it. So, Btrust was very helpful in this sense! :) I jumped at the chance and, as plain as it is (it is, after all, just a very white dough made up of flour, sugar and eggs), I quite liked it. The dough is very dense and has a completely different texture to that of Western cookies (even of Chinese cookies); there's a slight hint of peanut, though I couldn't place if it was in the dough or maybe brushed on top. This was surprisingly tasty!So, in conclusion, Btrust surprised me a little. I can't say I was expecting much; I don't really see people buying anything from there, but it's worth popping into, though I'm not sure about the similarities with T&T, which I would assume bakes only for themselves? I actually gave T&T the honour of being one of the best supermarket bakeries, and yet, Chinese-wise, I keep finding that the other smaller supermarkets bake it better: Btrust is better for the pastries/cookies and Oceans, as the youngest brother continues to attest, makes the best buns. So, give the small guys a try, maybe? ;) //need to improve my concluding remarks//
Rating: **1/2
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