Looking for a great bakery with "normal" items.

[sanrensho]

Nikuya used to do fresh fried chicken karaage and pork tonkatsu - but  I think they stopped.  It was the perfect minimall meal - Deep Fried Japanese Meat, then Cream Filled Italian Patries, chased down my a large soda from Petro-Canada.  A perfect Hastings Street Moment.

Yes, it was a major disappointment when they stopped the bento meals. (Butcher shops in Japan typically offer bento meals based around karaage chicken, various tonkatsu and croquettes.) In our case, the bento meals were an easy supper after doing our Saturday afternoon shopping along Hastings. The goods we got from Italia Bakery usually got consumed on the trip home.

[~cayenne~]

I think Notte's Bon Ton would fit that bill.

I haven't had anything from there in a few years, but it's where my grandmother used to get Diplomat cakes, and IIRC they have all that typical pâtisserie.

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I've never been remarkably impressed with the fare at Notte's Bon Ton. Mediocre at best, at least according to my palate.

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I think they were probably better before they moved from Granville, close to Pacific Centre? They were so popular and extremely busy then, but it just didn't seem to be anywhere near the same at the location they moved to (a few years ago since I was there).

[eatrustic]

It's not that the Bon Ton was better on Granville it's more that we the buying public have matured past average quality, classic pastry making.

When I first arrived here from Montreal and it's wonderful pastry shops I spent about 5 minutes in the Bon Ton on Granville before I moved on never to return. It's all about the memories of childhood, or perhaps for the older crowd a first experience with a kind of pastry they had never seen before.

Much more interesting for me were the German and Austrian tearooms (and all their traditional pastries) on Robson in the old "Robsonstrausse days".

[CanadianBakin']

Out of interest, Nikuya Meats (Japanese butcher) is located next door to the Italia Bakery, so you might want to take a look inside there as well.

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Yes, I was going to mention Nikuya Meats too, hum'd 'nd haw'd to myself if I should....... thought it was such a great discovery also. Two great little shops in that little strip mall, with the Gourmet Castle and Tom & Jerry's too!

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So it's in the same strip mall as Tom & Jerry's?

[~cayenne~]

It's not that the Bon Ton was better on Granville it's more that we the buying public have matured past average quality, classic pastry making.

When I first arrived here from Montreal and it's wonderful pastry shops I spent about 5 minutes in the Bon Ton on Granville before I moved on never to return. It's all about the memories of childhood, or perhaps for the older crowd a first experience with a kind of pastry they had never seen before.

Much more interesting for me were the German and Austrian tearooms (and all their traditional pastries) on Robson in the old "Robsonstrausse days".

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While I can understand in a sense what you are saying, do we the buying public really have much of a choice overall in any quality of classic pastry making anymore, at least in our overall greater locale? Many of the old standards have hadn't much positive feedback here, and many others in the past have been replaced by corporations, and not just of the culinary variety, especially along Robson. What a change there, huh!

[~cayenne~]

Out of interest, Nikuya Meats (Japanese butcher) is located next door to the Italia Bakery, so you might want to take a look inside there as well.

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Yes, I was going to mention Nikuya Meats too, hum'd 'nd haw'd to myself if I should....... thought it was such a great discovery also. Two great little shops in that little strip mall, with the Gourmet Castle and Tom & Jerry's too!

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So it's in the same strip mall as Tom & Jerry's?

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Yup! Anchored by Tom & Jerry's at one end and a questionable entertainment source with opaque windows at the other.

(The bakery is basically right in the middle, to the right of Gourmet Castle and left of T&J's)

Edited April 24, 2006 by ~cayenne~ (log)