Red Sail Boat Bakery

Bakery: Red Sail Boat Bakery
Address: 2838 Victoria Park Ave, Toronto ON
Website: n/a
Style: Chinese
Price: $ 

During a rather impromptu trip to Scarborough/E Toronto, I decided to take an alternate route and spotted this bakery while driving past looking for something for lunch (which somehow ended up being in Jtown ^-^;;;). My bakery radar must have been working very well that day, since this is slightly hidden under the overhanging roof of this old plaza. Nevertheless, RSB is a small Chinese bakery with two racks of the usual meat and cream buns as well as drinks and a small menu of hot food. The buns and egg tarts are certainly the focal points, since they didn't have any of the more traditional pastries; rather, the baked goods have a distinctly homey look to them which is contrasted with the commercial look of a great many Chinese bakeries, especially those in Chinatown. These seem to come in smaller batches and come already packed in little baggies so that they're nice and fresh. Also contrasting with the typical roster of baked goods and filling, they had a few original offerings such as powdered-sugar dusted mango buns and wintermelon wife pastries, which I've seen sold pre-packed and imported from HK at my local Chinese supermarket, but never in a bakery. As with all Chinese bakeries: expect great prices and clear labelling.

So, I ended up with two items (it would have been more, but well, I was making my way to Viking Bakery that day ^-^): the first was an almond cookie ($1), because I knew that, no matter what, one of my usual co-samplers (my brother) was a fan of them. Knowing this, I had to give this one a try. Why, you may ask? Because it actually looked like an almond cookie! It was brown (not artificially coloured yellow)! It had slivers of almonds on top! These guys really tried to make this look appetizing and well, real. :/ And they did succeed: crunchy dough with a dollop of slivered almonds stuck on by a bit of sticky caramelized sugar, these were tasty as cookies. Perhaps the almond wasn't that obvious, but I can't recall the last time it actually was (besides the recommended almond cookies from Macau -- these are sold in supermarkets, but watch out since only one brand (I forgot the name) is good) A fairly good cookie overall.

Next was the red bean pastry ($1), which I've yet to see anywhere else, especially in this flat form resembling dorayaki (Japanese red bean pancakes). This consisted of thin, slightly flaky dough stuffed with a red bean filling and topped with a couple sesame seeds on egg wash. This was fairly tasty. I can't say it was anything really through-the-roof (I discovered today that everyone seems to rave about the egg tarts so perhaps that would have been a wise pick; oh well), but both items were pretty good. Not the best, but better than the average, character-less (except in their sign, of course ;D Ha ha ha, get it? Characters.. Chinese characters... uh, yeah, don't mind me....) Chinese bakery.

Rating: ***