Better than Bahn Mi... Jj Bakery
I LOVE sandwiches
All types and all kinds. And so, I LOVE Bahn Mi. The crusty french bread, the salty fillings, and pickled crunchy veggies
Bahn Mi to me was as good as Asian Sandwiches got
Until I stopped by Jj Bakery this weekend to pick up a cake for Fathers Day.
Jj bakery is a local upscale Chinese Bakery Chain. There are branches several branches including Rowland Heights (This is my location on Nogales and Colima in the Big Lots Center), Irvine (In the 99 Ranch center, which even houses a café!) and Arcadia (Right across from Din Tai Fung). Upon entry of their beautiful shops, you notice the absolutely BEAUTIFUL and delicate cakes and pastries in the cases. Along the side wall is all sorts of breads that I can't seem to resist upon my visits! Usually I get some pretty simple everyday sandwiches. But I was VERY hungry and went a little wildier in my sandwich selection
Egg And Pork Roll. This looked like Jelly Roll except the outer layer was a thick omlet and inside the roll was bits of fluffy soft pork! By fluffy, I mean, it seriously looked like dust bunnies! I've never seen BBQ pork like this, and while it was a bit dry, it was VERY concentrated and flavorful!
BBQ Pork in Pastry. A HUGE roll of puff pastry stuffed with the same BBQ pork fluff.
Chicken in Pastry. Very similar to an empanada! YUM!!
Breaded Pork and Veggies. This was the BEST!!! It looked more like a sandwich than any other of them. A small oblong soft roll. Stuffed was two triangles of a panko breaded fried THICK pork cutlet, Stuffed in the middled pickled carrots and other veggies. OMG!! This blew any bahn mi I've ever had out of the water
The pork was so flavorful and still crunchy! The veggies were the perfect compliment. This takes the cake now for my absolute FAVORITE Asian Sandwich.
Finally, the Cake, I got my dad their Choc-choc cake. A small oblong cake 'bar', it was absolutely beautiful. Molded on top was a bunch of grapes and carefully dusted all over dutch cocoa powder. Inside was Thin layers of choclate cake, butter cream and chocolate mousse flavored with cointreau. Rich, but not too sweet
One of the best cakes I've had in a long time
As I mentioned, Jj Bakery is a bit upscale, each of these sandwiches costs about $2.00 (So a bit more than Bahn Mi) and the pastries are also a bit pricy (The oblong cake bar and it costs ~$14.00 and feeds probably about six). But the ingredients are all top notch. Again, everything is beautiful and most importantly, it's some DAMN tasty chow! :)
Below is the website featuring lots of scrumpcious pictures of their goodies!
--Dommy!
Dommy!
Jun 20, 2005 08:21PM
Nice report Dommy! Will add to my "to try" list.
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I love JJ Bakery. But the one in Irvine (with the cafe) is actually not related to the JJ Bakery elsewhere.
What's even more confusing is that the J. Sweet Bakery on Walnut in Irvine (the other 99 Ranch in Irvine) *IS* related to the L.A. area JJ Bakeries...weird huh?
Link: http://elmomonster.blogspot.com
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I found nothing at this place all that great.
Once had to wait an ungodly 1 hour for a table at DTF and wandered over to this place. Very nice, glitzy and shiny, but the pastries, cakes and what-nots were nothing more what you can find at any of the many, many bakeries all over SGV. It's also a bit pricey, if not completely overpriced.
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Have to agree with Ipse...their cakes are absolutely beautiful but I thought lacked in flavor. The first cake I bought was also the choco choco one, it looked wonderful, but once it was sliced up and eaten, had no response from anyone. Decided to give JJ another try with another cake and once again everyone said it looked beautiful, but once eaten, no one liked it. I did not try their breads though and will give them a third try...only because I trust Dommy's taste.
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Thank you so much for the compliment...
I the reason my posts tend to be on the wordy side is because I try to explain MYSELF as best as possible (I'm kinda weird it comes to tastes :)). I actually perfer not too sweet subtle deserts, so yes, I agree with your assesment that these cakes will get oohs and ahhs... but probably not the same Hmmm that a richly flavored dessert will get. But in terms of cake (Which I often find way too often suffering in either, two sweet, too dense, too pasty or too dry) this one was perfect for me.
I hope you do enjoy the breads. They are REALLY soft, delicately flavored (Almost slightly sweet) and again work as great compliments to their fillings.
--Dommy!
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You know what? I think we can chalk up this to cultural differences.
I am Asian and I dislike those too-sweet cakes American bakeries produce. A recent bad experience was at Karen Krasne's Extraordinary Desserts in San Diego. People on the SD Board RAVED and RAVED about it...but alas, when I took my family there, we just about hated everything we tried. The ice cream was tooth achingly sweet. I couldn't even get past the first couple of spoonfuls. Then there was a fruit tart whose crust was basically nothing but meringue that overdosed on C&H...HORRIBLE!
Yet, people, and with this I mean, people with American tastes (for lack of a better term) still love it.
My Asian tastebuds, as well as those of my family and my Asian friends lean towards (what we think is) sublime, and not-to-sweet cakes that Chinese and Persian bakeries dole out. I love JJ's and their kin.
Link: http://www.chowhound.com/topics/show/...
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Actually, my favorite thing in the shopping center that houses DTF and JJ Bakery is the coconut/taro gelatin at Phoenix Bakery. But it STILL ain't better than banh mi, baby...
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