九龍烘焙麵包坊 [Mimi's World Tour]

Bakery: 九龍烘焙麵包坊 (Kowloon Bakery)
Address: No. 193, Wufu 4th Road, Yancheng District, Kaohsiung
Website: n/a
Style: Chinese
Price: $$ 

Moving down to Kaohsiung, Yancheng District was my first stop for bakeries in the city. And what a bakery-heavy district this was! Even with two days of exploration, I had to turn some down... unbelievable. The first on that tour was Kowloon Bakery, a small, hole-in-the-wall business that may not have the selection of other bakeries, but sometimes it's nice popping into the more humble spots and they did have a couple of more unique bread varieties. Their doughnuts also looked pretty good, but I'd already taken care of that elsewhere that day. ;)

Instead, I took the walnut bread ($35). I didn't really appreciate the giant slash right through the middle of it that almost cut the bun in two - it ruined the picture. x_x Nonetheless, this was a semi-sweet bun with big chunks of walnut both sprinkled on top and embedded in the brown, slightly nutty dough. The bread was slightly more dense for a typical Chinese bun. I would have liked the bubbling crust on top to have had actual texture and not just make the top a bit soggy, but it was pretty good.

Rating: ***

Top Bakery [Mimi's World Tour]

Bakery: Top Bakery (Top烘焙房)
Address: No. 2, Fuguo Road, Hualien
Website: facebook
Style: Chinese
Price: $$

My final bakery stop in Hualien, Top Bakery is located north of the train station and is notable for its remarkably spacious interior and impressive selection of more than just the sweet and savoury buns you encounter everywhere. I was almost overwhelmed by the amount of bread, pastries and refrigerated creamy treats, though for me the item most worthy of mention was the shelf of cake stands featuring several varieties of pre-sliced coffee cakes. It came as such a welcome change - finally, something truly different that's not just a bunch of carbon copy baked goods! *-*

Yes, I was suffering from pineapple and milk cream, etc. bun overdose at the time and was in desperate need of something more unique and hopefully less bready as well. Fortunately, there was the orange coffee cake ($50). The cake had whole candied orange embedded into the top and featured chunks of orange in the dough itself. That dough was moist and fresh, though the parts with no orange didn't have any distinct taste. Nevertheless, this looked and tasted homemade - and that's quite a compliment if you couldn't tell.

Rating: *** 

Golden Grain Bakery

Bakery: Golden Grain Bakery
Address: 153 Brady St, Sudbury, ON
Website: http://goldengrainbakery.com/
Style: Canadian
Price: $$

One of the only bakeries in Sudbury that are open on Sunday (yes, this was indeed the initial reason for coming here), Golden Grain is without a doubt a bread bakery through and through. And an institution at that! Now, I've gone to many a bread bakery, but Golden Grain was one of those places where I was hard pressed to find anything sweet at all. Maybe that was due to the fact that I had come on a Sunday afternoon and the place looked and felt pretty empty. They may sell out early or bake less on Sunday; there were, after all, a bunch of empty baskets behind the counter along with two kinds of cookies and that final remnant of sweet baked goods I was very lucky to snatch up. Otherwise there would have not been a Cake Tour!

I'll confess the cinnamon buns ($2.20) didn't look great at first glance. They were a little too dark, almost blackened on top. The glaze was thin and crackled. The bun looked doughy and bland. Usually, the appearance gives you an idea of how good it will taste, but in this case... that first bite came as a flavour-blasted surprise. This was good! The dough was more complex than it looked: fluffy, moist and rolled in a drier cinnamon mass. That glaze on top was just right; not too sweet, not too overpowering, it gave the outside an almost doughnut-like texture. I guess you can't judge a book by its cover - now I just wish they had more selection!

Rating: ***

Mr. Turon [Mimi's World Tour]

Bakery: Mr. Turon (杜倫先生)
Address: No. 23, Zhonghua Road, Hualien 
Website: http://www.mrturon.com/
Style: Chinese
Price: $$-$$$ 

Turon (and yes, that's Mister Turon to you) is a cartoon raccoon at the centre of this small dessert shop (they actually also have a store inside Hualien train station - this is where I went) and one who is especially fond of plastering his adorable little face on all the products. The concept is brilliant and downright irresistible, so much so that I'm genuinely amazed that Mr. Turon hasn't become bigger than it is. There wasn't even much interest surrounding the store.

While selling mostly gift boxes with cookies, mochi and whatnot, there is a small counter with individual treats. There's not much there. Cream sandwiches, baked cheesecake slices and their "famous" - at least this is what the worker said - cheesecake creme brulee ($60).

The cheesecake creme brulee comes in a little plastic cup; on top, there's a Japanese-style souffle cheesecake. Under that, there's not necessarily creme brulee, but a caramel pudding. The kind that come in those plastic cups: jiggly, creamy pudding with sugar syrup pooling around the bottom. Both elements were tasty. The cheesecake was nice and fluffy and the pudding was good, though it could have been more rich and creamy. Presentation was ingenious. My issue was that there was zero cohesion between the two layers: it literally was a cheesecake on top of the creme brulee. I think you could have even pulled the cheesecake out and eaten the two separately. No real transition, no complementary textures or flavours. Honestly, it kind of felt like you took the cheesecake out of the oven too soon and the entire bottom was still wet and unbaked. Despite everything, it was a little... weird?

Rating: ***

Orillia Bakery & Deli

Bakery: Orillia Bakery & Deli
Address: 155 Front St S, Orillia ON
Website: http://www.orilliabakery.ca/
Style: Canadian 
Price: $$ 

This is one of these places where it would be more apt to say Orillia Deli & Bakery than to put that highly coveted "bakery" title first. Of course, this deli/bakery does devote an ample section of their store to homemade breads, pies and loaf cakes, but the bread is definitely the highlight here. In truth, I was a little disappointed to find so little baked goods and treats available. Almost all are sold behind the counter by the cash and, of those there, most are sweets that are able to sit around for longer periods of time. I also didn't really like that these all came in specially sealed plastic bags, giving them a factory-made look. I hate when baked goods are sitting around in plastic: the texture - especially when something is supposed to be flaky or crunchy - is lost and you get that unpleasant supermarket taste. Bakeries take note!

The only loose item was the cinnamon bun (around $2.50; some items are priced/labelled, some are not). This consisted of a large spiral of dough topped with thick strips of classic icing. There was a nice amount of cinnamon rolled in throughout the dough, but I found the latter to be especially doughy and the stiff, somewhat airy consistency a bit too... generic. Not bad, but not remarkable.

The Eccles cake ($2.25) was a traditional puff pastry pocket stuffed with a fragrant blend of dried fruits. Perhaps not as spiced and aromatic as I like it, but the ratio of fruit to dough was good, as was the taste. However, the dough was too soft - this kind of dough should never come soggy. Fresh puff pastry should have that flaky crunch and a whole lot of mess (LOL); when it gets soft, the effect is just not the same.

 

Last but not least: Orillia (the town) seems to be a butter tart destination. Every bakery has them. And not only do they have them, they usually have multiple varieties. Why the butter tart love? Well, I don't know, but I too love my butter tarts, so I'm not blaming them. The undeniable star of the show ($1.35), the filling has that great crust and is ooey gooey and filled with pecans. The shell isn't too thick (as is sometimes the case), but why the airtight plastic baggies!?! A butter tart shell is just as important as the filling and by wrapping these in plastic, the texture is gone!

Rating: **1/2

Uncle Pan [Mimi's World Tour]

Bakery: Uncle Pan (胖叔叔烘焙屋)
Address: No. 46, Sanmin Street, Hualien 
Website: https://www.unclepan.tw/
Style: Chinese
Price: $$ 

With such a marketable name, I'm genuinely surprised that Uncle Pan has only one location - and that being an easily missed shop next to a hotel (at least I couldn't initially find it...). Having only returned to town in the evening, I found Uncle Pan rather empty, both in terms of baked goods and people. Usually, however, there is one benefit to coming late in the day: you can get discounted baked goods. This was not the case here, though. I had the double disadvantage of having to choose from that day's leftovers and paying full price for them.

Whether or not this was due to these circumstances, I found the bakery lacking in single-serve sweet buns. The majority were savoury, while the specialty here seems to be loaves of bread in a variety of flavours and fillings. Oh, they have gift boxes too. And while the loaves of bread did look the most exciting, I didn't want to commit to it when I'd be the only one eating it. So the classic pineapple bun ($28) it was.

My favourite kind of pineapple bun is the old-school variety: a hefty slightly greasy, slightly flaky crust atop a soft simple yet flavourful bun. This one looked like it had promise. The "shell" was thick and textured, almost cookie-like. Perhaps not as crusty as I would have liked it, but not bad. Where it fell flat was the dough underneath: it had that stiff foamy texture that I wasn't too fond of. It could have been better.

Rating: **1/2

Qiaomai Bakeries [Mimi's World Tour]

Bakery: Qiaomai Bakeries (喬麥烘焙坊) 

Address: No. 397, Zhongshan Road, Hualien
Website: facebook 
Style: Chinese
Price: $$ 

A small bakery located along Hualien's "main" street, Qiaomai is open fairly late (at least it was open when I walked past it in the evening) and pumps out freshly baked bread, both sweet and savoury, throughout the day, though after a certain time they do start stuffing into plastic bags. While the majority of items are bread or savoury buns (with quite a number of green onion/cheese varieties), they have all the classic sweet buns with some cakes and puddings by the counter.  

Seeing as they came fresh from the oven (at least, fresh from the cooling rack) and older ones were being packed into plastic bags, I grabbed a "Mexican milk bun". ($35; 墨西哥奶酥) Based on my previous Chinese bakery experience, I always associated Mexico buns with chocolate, but I guess the name isn't because it's a chocolate bun, but because of the thin crepe-like layer on top of a standard sweet bun? Learned something new.... Whether it was because the bun was too fresh or the bread too airy, the slightly crispy outer shell turned into a sort of souffle and shrivelled on me. The top got soft, almost soggy within minutes of being packaged. That top, however, was the definite highlight of the bun, especially as the bread underneath was lacklustre - this was my main issue with it. So much so that it could equally suit a savoury meat bun; a sweeter, more fluffy dough would have worked better than generic, one-recipe-fits-all bread.

Rating: **1/2