BLANC [Mimi's World Tour]

Bakery: Boulangerie de BLANC 
Address: 192 Yanghwa-ro, Seogyo-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul
Website: n/a 
Style: Korean 
Price: $$ 

The World Tour returns with a new country to add to the list: South Korea! Yes, I went to South Korea for 2.5 weeks and have come back with a whole bunch of bakeries to review.

It was fairly late in the evening when I first stumbled across BLANC, a bakery-cafe right at Hongdae station. It aims to be a bit chic, with mostly European-inspired pastries and, seemingly typical of Korean bakeries, some questionable flavour combinations. The layout isn't the greatest when even slightly crowded and seems a bit all over the place, especially with the random placement of sweet and savoury with items laid out on both sides. It is nice that they put an English description, however, and prices are pretty affordable. On my first visit, the tables were pretty empty with the day's leftovers being quickly snatched up by customers. The thing I took was by far the most appetizing-looking and, it being the last one, I did the same.

 The description was "blueberry cream cheese pastry" (2,800 won). Not being a cream cheese fan, I admit I was a little wary at first; more specifically, just how much cream cheese would I end up with? Was it aiming to be a cross between a bagel with cream cheese and chocolate glazed doughnut? Taking the first bite, I was surprised at the flaky dough with its fantastic initial crunch. Inside, a rich, fruity cream added just the right punch; there wasn't too much of it, and it wasn't too sticky. Top that off with chocolate glaze and sprinkles. Personally, the only minus were those sprinkles, which were way too hard and just got in the way.

Still, it quickly became a Seoul bakery highlight and, wanting an encore towards the end, I returned to BLANC one day and found it empty and lacking that blueberry cream cheese pastry. I tried again the following day and, again not finding it there, went with a classic twist doughnut that just didn't wow me the same way; I especially didn't appreciate them cutting it up into bite-sized pieces so that any crunch was lost. Oh well. The pleasant memory still remains....

Rating: ***1/2