Maruki Bakery [Mimi's World Tour]

Bakery: Maruki Bakery 
Address: 松原通堀川西入北門前町740, Kitamonzenchō, Shimogyō-ku, Kyoto 
Website: n/a 
Style: Japanese 
Price: $$ 

After all these franchise or conglomerate-owned bakeries I regularly stumbled across on my trip to Osaka, Maruki Bakery came as a welcome breath of fresh air. This is what I meant to find on my Cake Tour: a small neighbourhood bakery located, incidentally, on an otherwise insignificant residential street. In fact, the only reason I came this way was to go to the post office. Regardless of the reason, Maruki Bakery is a small bakery with a table of trays facing directly onto the street; there's barely any storefront or anywhere to stand if there are any customers in front of you, just a little overhang and a wooden sign. There's something cute about it, even if without a doubt their main attraction is their long, somewhat overflowing sub-sandwiches filled with shredded cabbage along with crunchy katsu or croquettes. Unlike many Japanese bakeries, there are no trays or tongs, you're served directly by the single lady behind the counter.

On a weekday afternoon, not too long before closing, there was only one sweet item left, so I don't quite know what else they have. To be quite honest, I wasn't initially too happy with the danish (170 yen) I picked out, mostly owing to the icing on top that resembled an over-easy egg. The "egg white" turned out to be normal white icing and the "yolk" a sort of sweet, somewhat chewy candy. Beyond that, however, I was amazed at how tasty this decadent, flaky danish with its coffee cream filling was. This was good, really good! I hadn't expected the cream at all, so it was pleasant surprise.

In the end, it turned out to be one of my top picks in the city! The neighbourhood bakery delivered.

Rating: ***1/2