What’s good…

The other day, I stopped by the outlet of this bakery…

*Archive photo*

…near my house to see if there was anything that I would like to try.

We had been going in and out of this place buying this and that like these that I bought quite a long time ago but I did not think there was anything that really stood out from some of the stuff at the other bakeries in town. Oh yes! We went there to buy the New York cheese cake that we thought was very nice and my girl’s colleagues loved it very much so I would buy one quite regularly for her to take back to her school to share with them. I think theirs is baked, not chilled to set in the fridge…but like all those cheese cakes, there is about this much that one can eat so of late, we have not gone back there to grab more. I did notice that day though that the price was RM20.00 and I do remember somewhat vaguely that it was not a round figure way back then, maybe RM18.00, if I’m not wrong.

While I was there, I spotted these Portuguese egg tarts (RM2.20 each)…

…and I quickly grabbed two. I love egg tarts, these or the regular ones but my girl likes this type only so I was thinking that if they are nice, I would go and buy some more for her when she comes home at the end of this week for the two-week mid-year school holidays. We had pretty good ones once from this bakery (and some say that theirs are the best in town) but parking in that part of town is always such a pain so if the ones here are good, we would be able to buy and enjoy them more regularly.

To my delight, they were indeed very good! I loved how crispy those thin layers of the puff pastry…

…were and the texture and the rich creamy taste of the egg custard…

…were simply perfect!

Their chicken mushroom pies (RM2.20 each)…

…looked rather tempting so I bought two of those as well.

Yes, they were good, nicer than those at some of the other bakeries, and there was a lot of meat inside…

…and bits of mushroom as well. The filling tasted great though I would say they could cut down a bit on the msg used (but maybe those who are more comfortable with the stuff would not agree with me on this) and the pastry was not exactly hard, just a bit, but sadly, it lacked the nice buttery fragrance of my favourite here. Those are bigger too but they were selling for RM3.50 each, up from RM2.80 originally…and I hear it has gone up again and are now going for RM3.70 each. Tsk! Tsk! Still, on the whole, I feel those are nicer and would rather go for them instead of these…if ever I feel like having some chicken pies.

The Dragon Boat or Chang Festival or the Duānwǔ Jié is round the corner on the 20th of June, 2015. Of course I prefer the nyonya ones but since we do not know how to tie those dumplings, I don’t think we will get to enjoy eating any this year…unless some kind soul makes or buys some for me (Hint! Hint! LOL!!!) so we will just have to be happy with what we call the Hokkien chang that we can buy here. Unfortunately, of late, even those leave a lot to be desired – those that they sell at the Chinese stalls or shops. The prices keep going up from RM2.00 to RM2.50…and then RM3.00 and I hear they are selling them right now for RM3.50. They still taste good but you would need a microscope to be able to find any traces of meat in those…and the last time I bought one with salted egg yolk inside (can’t remember the price, RM4 or RM4.50, somewhere around there), it was not much better. I could detect the taste of the salted egg in the dumpling but I could not see any!

Well, this bakery (as well as the one on the other side of town – the one with the curry puffs that I like very much) makes very nice ones (RM2.80)…

…never mind that it is not a perfect cone…

…and being pork-free, they use chicken and the best part is that one can actually see the chunks of meat inside…

I’ve tried the lor mai kai too and yes, theirs is not too bad, I would say, but they were RM3.00 each two years ago – I dread to imagine how much one would cost now.

Generally, I would say this is definitely one of the better and more popular bakeries in town. There may be some hits and some misses, but judging from the branches/outlets that are opening here and there, it is pretty obvious that they’re doing well and are here to stay.