Chinese Bakery

Bakery: Chinese Bakery
Address: 433 Dundas St W, Toronto ON 
Website: n/a 
Style: Chinese
Price: $ 

Chinese Bakery -- the name says it all. ;) It's a bakery and it's Chinese (and it's in Chinatown)! There are, in fact, many Chinese bakeries in Chinatown and so I've vowed to try a new one every time I'm somewhat in the area. Walking along Dundas this time around, I stepped into the first one on the south side of the street and that was this one. As Chinese bakeries go, they offer pretty much the same stuff as always: mostly meat buns, some sweet buns and cookies. This one also happens to be one of the cheapest ones in the area with those famous 3/$1 meat and sweet buns and almost everything else around the several items for $1-2 range. Chinese Bakery is also quite generous in terms of size and stuffing, something which the other cheap cheap bakeries fall short of. This is really Great Value with a capital G-V. ;D As such, the line is always pretty big, but it goes quickly and easily (unlike the madness at Furuma).

So~ onto the purchases! First up was the uh, semi-usual sugar/butter bun (3/$1 or $0.40/each), a sweet bun dusted with a bit of granulated sugar. Despite being the last one available, I don't think I'd return for this again. Normally, aside from the actual sugar, the bun itself is slightly sweet and quite tasty; the one at CB was strangely bland and didn't even taste like a loaf of white sandwich bread. Texture was fine, as was the size and smell... I just can't figure out why it didn't taste like anything. O.o

Next up was the latest entry on the hunt for the best Chinese almond cookie. Here, the label called it a walnut puff (2/$1), though um, it was topped with slivered almonds. Anyways, the cookie was the right cookie and both guinea pigs enjoyed this one quite a bit.

On top of that, there were these little black bean dumplings (2/$1) which I photographed without knowing whether they were sweet or not.. and they were, so yay! At least, Chinese baking with beans is never really sweet, but it was a dessert. Deep-fried dough that was crispy on the outside, soft on the inside and smelled.. really good. :P The filling was similar to red bean fillings and a somewhat of a paste with some whole beans as well. The guinea pigs, once again, said it was pretty tasty as one of the better Chinese bakeries, both in Chinatown and elsewhere. So, uh take note. XD

Rating: ***