風月堂西點麵包 [Mimi's World Tour]

Bakery: 風月堂西點麵包 (Fengyue Tang Pastry and Bread) 

Address: No. 151, Yanping South Road, Zhongzheng District, Taipei

Website: n/a

Style: Chinese

Price: $-$$

Not wanting to cross the street on my way, I decided to visit this bakery after dinner instead of before. This ended up working in my favour, since after a certain time (7 or 8), this bakery offers 40% off everything - and everyone in the neighbourhood seems to know it. Before dinner the place was absolutely empty. After, during 40% off time, there was hardly enough room to stand inside. Given that the bakery is listed as being open until 11pm, I was a little surprised that they would offer such a discount so soon. More than that, I always associate the end-of-day clearance as having to pick through leftovers - I mean, I went to some bakeries after dinner and had to pick through leftovers *and* pay full price for it - but here the selection was ample and the trays fully stocked. So does the bakery get all their business at the end of the day? Does that mean a price mark up or perhaps the baked goods themselves aren't worth paying full price for? Suffice to say, I was a little suspicious. 

This was one of the places where I actually bought two things instead of my usual one. In that, I was mistaken, since I was neither impressed with the doughnut twist nor with the coconut bun. The twist doughnut ($28; all prices listed are regular/before any sort of discount) looked nice and flaky with its varying layers of golden brown, but upon biting into it, I found it to be dense, doughy and tasting somewhat stale (or at least of old oil), not benefiting at all in terms of texture from the fact that it was deep-fried. 

Similarly, the coconut bun ($35) was probably my least favourite from the ones I tried. The top was alright, seeing as all the coconut seemed to concentrate there, but the bread itself was dry on the inside and quite greasy on the outside; otherwise, it had no taste of its own. At the very least, the coconut could have been more interspersed. Maybe it was worth it with the 40% discount, but I wasn't very impressed. 

Rating: **