Lagkagehuset [Mimi's World Tour]

Bakery: Lagkagehuset
Address: Torvegade 45, Copenhagen (many locations throughout city/Jylland)
Website: http://www.lagkagehuset.dk 
Style: Danish
Price: $$

 Lagkagehuset is a gorgeous chain of bakeries in and around Copenhagen and with a few places throughout Jylland; at any rate, the one on Christianshavn was a lovely, though hectic (you need to wait for your number to be called and I couldn't even get a decent photo, because there are SO many people), place dedicated to all things baked. Like shelves of bread and a window-full of goodies, like large pieces of cinnamon 'strudel' (kanelstang) or trays stuffed with sweet buns and danishes, which are so mouth-watering that you want them all.

Alas, I don't have the budget for something like this; on the contrary, I was quite.. tight in the wallet that day (having vowed to keep my daily food budget as close to 100kr as possible -- close to impossible in Copenhagen!) and settled on a more affordable item, though I found that, given the fancy interior and hordes of people, it was quite surprising to find their prices more reasonable and understandable than, say, Holm's Bager just across the square.

This time (lol, I act like I go to this place every day XD) I settled for the cinnamon bun (kanelgiffel -- 17,50kr), which was not made of the typical "Vienna bread" (wienerbrød, but of a dense yeast dough. Unlike Swedish or Finnish cinnamon buns (you must know that I love Scandinavian cinnamon buns), these didn't have this fluffy, bread-like dough, but was quite hard and compact and rolled with a semi-hardened cinnamon mass. I guess there's a reason why the Danes are famous for wienerbrød, and not cinnamon buns. :/ At least, not this kind, since my host made some delicious ones a few days back, mmm... These were alright, but not something worth taking again and I was kind of hoping for better given how amazing the rest of the baked goods *looked* (see, I know nothing about the taste).

In the end, my two days of baked goods in Copenhagen didn't turn out so great. Actually, it was a bit of a disappointment, but I might come back to Lagkagehuset upon my return; that is, if I don't find any new and exciting places to try first~~ ^.^

Rating: **1/2   

Holm's Bager [Mimi's World Tour]

Bakery: Holm's Bager
Address: Torvegade 50, Copenhagen 
Website: n/a 
Style: Danish
Price: $$ 

[The World Tour is back! And more timely than ever before; in fact, I can't say I've ever starting reviewing while still on holiday, but I can't say I have anything better to do *sighs* So, without further ado: Copenhagen, bakery #1!]

Holm's Bager was the very first bakery I spotted in Denmark! *-* I had just got off the metro from the airport -- I was staying on Christianshavn -- and there it was, right on the corner... beckoning me with sweets and baked goods. Lol. So, after dropping off my luggage, I returned with great impatience and eagerly bought up a raspberry spandauer (25kr), perhaps the closest equivalent to the English term, "danish".

Now, the thing that makes Danish baking renowned, or its signature at any rate, is its deliciously flaky, multi-layered "Vienna bread" (think an amazing version of a croissant) dough; some nail it to the point of perfection (think The Danish Pastry House ^^ -- I think I'll finish by starting up an official fan club) and others fail miserably. Nonetheless, it's all in the dough and, despite comments on the latter's website that they've never tried anything so delicious, even in Denmark, I truly believed that Denmark should have, in theory, the pinnacle of "Vienna bread" and one awesome, well, danish. In practice, however, I always seem to be wrong -- Holm's Bager didn't exactly make my World Tour set off on the right track.


For one, for what seems to be a lesser known bakery on the same square as the more illustrious Lagkagehuset (future post), I found prices to be a little too much. I attributed it solely to my not knowing Danish prices (which are almost as depressingly high as Norway ;__;) but have since discovered scrumptious pastries for half the price; so, in a word, they were a tad overpriced, especially for what you get. I mean, it looked pretty good and fulfilled all the toppings criteria: icing, fruit, slivered almonds. As tantalizing as it looked, the dough was soggy, and there was no characteristic crunch and layering (I'm starting to sound like a pro! ^.^), except in the brittle icing bits. This, however, wasn't too bad and quite tasty if you didn't take into consideration my too-high expectations-- it was the filling that was the killer. Lately, I've noticed that more and more "jams" are actually labelled as "spreads", most likely due to some sort of lack of fruit content. Well, all I could say about this was: fruit spread, with no real "fruit" taste. For some reason, the one thing I thought of was those little packs you get at hotel breakfasts and they're all jelly-like, but not really that fruity? Same idea here, but there was so much of it that I had to just scoop some out, simply because otherwise it would have just been mouthfuls of the stuff. Not so great.

So, my first World Tour 2013 certainly didn't get off to a stellar start; Holm's was alright, but it certainly managed to burst the bubble in terms of my hopes and expectations for delicious, flaky creations. Fortunately, my faith has since been restored, but nonetheless, I don't think that on my return to Copenhagen, I'll make it a priority to return here. :/

Rating: **1/2

Tung Hing Bakery

Bakery: Tung Hing Bakery
Address: 888 Dundas St E (inside Mississauga Chinatown; multiple locations across GTA)
Website: http://tunghingbakery.ca/
Style: Vietnamese, Chinese
Price: $

Tung Hing Bakery is a chain of Chinese bakeries with multiple locations around the GTA. I myself went to the one in Mississauga Chinatown and found there seems to be more of a Vietnamese presence than your usual Chinese bakery. Of course, the coconut/cream buns are also there, but I found a lot of items that you never see in a typical Chinese bakery. I'm talking about giant slabs of sponge and rice cakes, green pandan jellies and cakes, sesame balls with a variety of fillings.

One thing, however, is that I didn't find the same knock-your-socks-off prices as I have in other Chinese bakeries, especially those found in Chinatown. Nonetheless, maybe as such, their stuff actually looks, if not better, not so mass produced/commercial looking. The steam cakes, especially, have this homemade feel and look to them; the sesame seed balls were lopsided. ;)

For starters, I picked out the sesame seed balls ($0.90/each), one with lotus paste and the other with black bean filling. Nicely deep-fried and crisp on the outside, generously coated, and quite stuffed on the inside. Some liked the black bean best, others the lotus (though the other sampler was complaining it was a little too flowery), but everyone agreed that they were most definitely better than the 3/$1 variety from the last bakeries! So, in a sense, you do get what you pay for -- and here you have the different flavours (though not the traditional red bean)

Second, I picked out a giant chunk of milk steam cake (or was it steam milk cake?) ($1.49), a super moist, airy monster of a slice of, one could say, sponge cake, just a lot more fluffy. I don't know if I could necessarily taste the milk or differentiate between the various versions, but I really liked the texture. Not too heavy and a nice taste. At the bakery, they keep these warm, so I heated this up again... Yummy!

So, in the end, I did in fact rejoice to find this place not your typical Chinese bakery. Because after all, one can never go wrong with a nice giant piece of cake. ;)

Rating: ***

La Villa Fine Foods and Bakery

Bakery: La Villa Bakery
Address: 331B Lakeshore Rd E, Mississauga ON
Website: http://www.lavillabakery.com/
Style: Italian, North American
Price: $$

[I am in Denmark! So, stay on the lookout for some exciting and not so exciting reviews on the World Tour :)] 

La Villa is an Italian bakery that has its most authentic items actually coming from their bread area, and not the sweets. The latter features a little bit of everything, mostly North American favourites like muffins, cookies and fruit turnovers. Of the case of goodies, the only thing I spotted that was actually Italian were the cannoli... okay, just one cannolo on the end of an empty tray. Usually, I go around bakery hunting late in the afternoon and am not surprised to find everything to be gone in a few places, but coming to find the place not very full at noon was a little... unexpected.

I was going to get that last cannolo, but finally settled for the apple crumble cheesecake ($3), which most surprisingly, was a lot better than I expected. For one, I'm always wary of "Italian" cheesecake, simply because they usually taste heavily of just cream cheese and store-bought graham cracker crumbs: NY style. This, on the other hand, was quite complex, with a nice, cinnamon-y crust on the bottle, apples baked right into the not too cheesy mass, and topped with crumble and generous swirls of caramel. A mix between apple crobbler and cheesecake, and it.. matched. So, in the end, I didn't come away from this place displeased, though I'm not sure if the price was worth the tiny sliver you receive in return...

Rating: **1/2