Hazukido [Mimi's World Tour]

Bakery: Hazukido (八月堂)
Address: No. 100, Guolian 1st Road, Hualien (Pop-up Shop)
Website: http://www.hazukido.com
Style: Croissants
Price: $$ 

The uh, pseudo-Japanese Taiwanese way of the croissant? It is indeed the best way to describe Hazukido, a bakery chain with international aspirations (as much as I dislike such ventures, I am kind of looking forward to their Canadian opening) and a rather adorable three-croissant crest on indigo that clearly shows this place is all about the croissant. After all, it's literally all they sell: about a half dozen varieties of croissant. At least, maybe they sell more at a legitimate shop, but the pop-up stand (presuming it's pop-up simply because it's no longer appearing on their website and it definitely seemed like a novelty when I was there) had two small rows of about six croissant varieties in total. These croissant varieties mostly came in the form of a glaze or some sort of topping; some - at least according to their diagram on their website - are filled, but I wasn't aware of that on site.

Of their selection, the "raspberry croissant" ($48) definitely appealed to me the most. I love raspberries, and as I said in an earlier post, finding baked goods with fruit was fairly rare in Taiwan, so I absolutely jumped at the chance. This consisted of a classic plain croissant coated in a slightly tart, slightly chewy fruity glaze that was then topped with a dusting of matcha powder and freeze-dried strawberries?... which got me wondering if the "raspberry" label in English was completely accurate and it wasn't actually "strawberry". No matter. I loved the glaze and just the overall concept was refreshing, but for a place that sells nothing but croissants, their specialty better be good and it was there that they fell rather flat. Specifically the croissant dough itself, which was neither flaky nor buttery enough. It was good in taste, but too soft in texture.

Rating: ***