Olympia [Mimi's World Tour]

Bakery: Olympia (世運食品)
Address: No. 78, Chengdu Road, Wanhua District, Taipei 
Website: https://www.olympiafoods.com.tw/
Style: Chinese
Price: $$

Olympia is and isn't a bakery. I mean, depending on where you look, you can be greeted with a standard, ample selection of sweet and savoury baked goods and cakes typical of  a larger bakery or you might think you've gone into the wrong business. This is because of the large dim sum counter in one part of the store that seems strangely out of place; certainly you wouldn't expect both to be operating under the same name, but they do. So you can grab your bread, birthday cake, braised meat, dumplings and turnip cakes all in one go. One stop shopping, if you will. Their website even advertised sushi, but that might be going a little too far. Thus, in a sense, Olympia feels a bit like the prepared food section of a bigger supermarket and as my saying goes "all-in-one equals none-in-one". The question is: do the baked goods taste like a supermarket bakery as well?

The selection is pretty good with some innovative items, but the dim sum and gift boxes make it look more impressive than it actually is; most have English descriptions and the prices are fairly reasonable. I took one of their "new" items: the custard cream horn ($40). This featured a typical soft bun stuffed almost to excess with custard and topped with these little crunchy dough bits I quite liked. The custard had the right consistency and was quite tasty; I was having my doubts as soon as I bought it that it wouldn't be very good, but it wasn't bad. Yes, there was definitely too much of it, especially when compared to the dough. Not exceptional, but I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't as commercial as the hodgepodge store made it seem.

Rating: ***