**~~~ (2/5)

I was in Yaletown looking for a quick bite for dinner, and I went to Boulangerie la Parisienne to get some sandwiches.

Boulangerie la Parisienne is a  French bakery located in Yaletown.  They had a lot of cakes, pastries, cookies in their display counter, and they all looked really appetizing.  Since it’s a bakery, and I only had sandwiches there,  I should clarify that this review will be based on their sandwiches only.

There were a lot of different types of sandwiches, pre-made, in a display case. I wanted the Smoked Salmon sandwich originally, but they ran out, so I got their Vegetarian Sandwich instead. The Vegetarian sandwich had tomato, lettuce, avocado, and bocconcini cheese with herb french bread.

The sandwich was put under a panini press because I asked the sandwich to be toasted. The panini made a lot of difference to the sandwich. It melted the cheese, the bread was nice and crusty on the outside, the heat from the panini press helped brought out a lot of the flavors. The sandwich had decent flavors, but mostly came from the herb bread.

I probably would not order sandwiches here again. Since the sandwiches were all pre-made, they weren’t particularly fresh.

It was an open space bakery, there were no walls between the inside of the bakery and their ‘patio’. Having said it’s an open space restaurant, there were quite flies flying around in the bakery while I was there. That was a little bit disturbing.

I was really tempted to get some of their pastries too, but I just didn’t have enough time for them. A lot of their pastries reminded me a lot of Boulangerie Cho Pain, another French bakery in Vancouver. Maybe they are related, because I swear, some of the pastries I saw, were exactly the same in both bakeries.

Final word, the sandwiches, were disappointing. However, I’m still interested in try their pastries.

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Boulangerie la Parisienne
1076 Mainland St
Vancouver, BC V6B
(604) 684-2499

***½~ (3.5/5)

I first came across Bon Chaz at EAT! Vancouver. I had a sample of their original buns and I remembered it to be so yummy that I had to go visit their store.

On Saturday I was looking for a place to have coffee with a couple friends, we went to Bon Chaz to get some coffee and also those delicious buns. This place was really spacious for a bakery café. There’s a book shelf with a few books, and scrabble on it. It looked like they were trying to accomplish it as a place for people to spend at least an hour and a half in.

My friends and I got there knowing exactly what we wanted. We wanted to try every single type of buns they have and we got all 4 flavors, plus the daily special bun. The 4 flavors were, Original, Banana Walnut, Green Tea, and Apple Cinnamon. The special of the day was a Vanilla Cream bun.

These buns at Bonchaz were soft buns with a flaky, crusty cookie like crust on the top. If you are familiar with Chinese pastry, they reminded me a lot of those Pineapple buns. Actually with the texture of the crust, and the texture and density of the bread itself, they are very smiliar.

The buns were really fantastic when they fresh out of the oven. They had great aroma, with the crusty top and the super soft bread. Each bite was warm, soft, and crusty, so yummy. I suggest you eat this as soon as you can after they’ve been pulled out of the oven for you, because just like most pastries, the warmer it is, the better.

The Original didn’t have any fillings in it. And for the Banana Walnut, each bite you’d get the soft, and sweet banana in the middle. The Green Tea bun had green tea cream filling inside and it was topped with toasty coconut flakes on the top. It was also pretty good, green tea lovers might love this.

This was a great alternative café to hang out at. They had decent coffee and tea. Out of all 4 different flavors, I liked the Original and Banana Walnut the best. I’d love to see the new flavors they’d come up in the future.

Note: Closed on Sundays!

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BonChaz Bakery Café
426 W Hastings St
Vancouver, BC V6B
www.bonchaz.ca

***~~ (3/5)

I walked to Trees Organic for some dessert with my friends because our plan to watch a movie was a bust. I’ve never heard or been to this place. I was brought here by my friends as they refer it as ‘that cheesecake place on Richards street’.

I walked to this place expecting a dessert shop, but it was only a coffee shop that sell cheesecakes. We got there half an hour before they close  (8pm on Sundays), and there were only 4 kinds of cheesecakes available.

The lady at the counter was really nice, she let us try the Mocha Cheesecake, it was pretty nice, but I wasn’t feeling chocolate that night, so I went with the Almond & Marzipan Cheesecake.

What is a marzipan? I had no clue, but I like almond. The cheesecake was served on a plate, with chocolate and caramel sauce drizzled on the top with whip cream on the side. My friend got the last slice of Blueberry Cheesecake, and he also got chocolate and caramel sauce drizzled on the top. I guess the do that with all their cheesecakes.

The Almond Cheesecake was pretty nice. It was creamy and very almondy. All I could taste was almond, which was good, but that means I also still don’t know what marzipan tastes like. The cake’s texture was light, the serving size wasn’t that big, but it was a heavy cake. It took me a while to eat it, and I couldn’t finish it.

The Blueberry Cheesecake seemed like a popular choice there. There were a couple people that came in and asked for it, too bad we took the last piece. Neener neener! But honestly, the blueberry cheesecake was good, but it wasn’t the best I’ve had. And that goes the same with the almond cheesecake. I remember seeing a sign in the store saying ‘the best cheesecake in Vancouver’. I don’t think I would agree.

I also got a coffee with my cheesecake, it wasn’t anything spectacular either.

The decor of this place was pretty cool. On one of their walls at the cashier counter, had the recipe for their cheesecake crust written on it. Just in case you want to know what you’re eating I guess? The shop was spacious, bright, with high ceilings. The staff here were really friendly. This would be good place for a quick hang out.

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Tree Organic Coffee
1391 Richards Street
Vancouver, BC V6B
www.treescoffee.com

****~ (4/5)

I’ve walked down Davie street numerous times but I’ve never noticed this little bakery called Boulangerie Cho Pain. I think I should be embarrassed, because this place seemed really popular with the locals.

This bakery specializes in European bread and rolls. They also have a large selection of sweet pastries.

I went in on an afternoon, looking for a small dessert. There were so many selections on display, it was really hard to pick just one.  I finally decided on a Paris Brest, while my friend got their Almond Chocolate Croissant.

The Paris Brest was really good. It was sort of like an open cream puff, with the choux pastry ring split and filled with cream. The ring had a cream puff consistency but with more moisture. The top half of the ring was covered in chocolate and something else that gave it a chewy consistency. The quality of the hazelnut cream was really good.There was a lot of cream, but I didn’t get sick of it at all. I think it had something to do with the surprise fresh raspberries that were buried in the cream.

The Almond Chocolate Croissant was good, but not spectacular. It had a lemon paste in the croissant, which made some part of the croissant moist, and some parts flaky. For dessert, the Paris Brest was a lot better.

I also had a cup of espresso here, the quality of beans they use were good too.

I think the most popular item here was their baguette. There were a couple people came into the store asking for baguettes, but they were already sold out at 2pm. Now I’m curious on just how good these baguettes are. I must come back to get these baguettes.

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Boulangerie Cho Pain
1165 Davie Street
Vancouver, BC V6E
(604) 669-4271
http://www.boulangerie-chopain.com/index.htm

****½ (4.5/5)

Alright, I promised you to get a review on Swiss Bakery’s Valentine’s specials before Valentine’s day, and here it is! …and some more.

They had quite a few Valentine’s special selections, they were mostly some sort of chocolate that were shaped like hearts. So many selections and I narrowed it down to 3. Chocolate mousse cake, Chocolate Ganache cake, and Salted Caramel Tarts.

The chocolate mousse cake was really good. The mousse was light, and fluffy, the whole thing was chocolaty, but not too sweet. It had a really good texture, and it kind of just melted in my mouth.

I recommend the Chocolate Ganache cake for serious chocoholics. It was very chocolaty, very good, but a little too sweet for my taste. If you ever crave chocolate, this is the cake that would do it.

My favorite out of the 3 would be the Salted Caramel Tart. It was a small heart shaped tart, with a chocolate crust, caramel filling and a few rocks of salt on top. It’s a perfect bite size, and the salt on top actually added a nice contrast to the sweetness of the caramel and the crust, very yummy.

Alright I visited the bakery during lunch time, and I hadn’t had anything to eat that day, so I also bought one of their Pretzel bread Sandwiches. I actually wanted everything in sight because I was so hungry. Anyways, I’ve read praise reviews about these sandwiches, so it was a no brainer for me to get it. There were 3 kinds of sandwiches, turkey, ham and roast beef. I tried the Roast Beef with Pretzel Bread.

The sandwiches was so yummy! It was big, a little bit more than a 6 inch sub. The pretzel bread was really good, it was like eating a bagel sandwich but BETTER. The sandwich had mayo, roast beef, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, and cheddar cheese. Yes! no Kraft single slices, way to go! This sandwich is actually something I would crave for, the pretzel bread was just so yummy, you gotta go try it.

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Swiss Bakery
143 3rd Ave E
Vancouver, BC V5T 1C7
(604) 736-8785
http://www.swissbakery.ca/
www.twitter.com/swissbakery
www.facebook.com/swissbakery

****~ (4/5)

The Secret Garden Tea Company is one of the places to go for afternoon, or high tea in Vancouver. This was my second time visiting Secret Garden, and the food quality was definitely a lot more tasty and memorable than my first time here.

This is a really busy tea house, on a weekend you probably will not get a table without a reservation. There were 3 high tea reservations times: 12pm, 2pm and 4pm. Each reservation has a 2 hour time limit. The deal for high tea for this place is you make a reservation, and you select your tea once you have arrived, you don’t have a choice on the food. The food would come in 3-tier platters including sandwiches, pastry, and scones.

They had a really large selection of teas. I was given a tea menu at the table, there was about 4 pages of teas. I decided to go with the good old fashion Earl Grey, while my friend got the Secret Garden’s Secret. The Earl Grey was good, it had a really intense flavor, however, I really recommend the Secret Garden’s Secret. It had a really nice aroma, and the taste was consistent with the smell, unlike other flavored teas. And I also thought it went better with all the food than Earl Grey.

The system to the 3-tier platter was to start from the bottom, and work your way up. The bottom tier of food was delicate sandwiches, included: egg salad rolls, crackers, and mini croissant sandwiches. The egg salad rolls was very light and creamy. The mini croissant sandwiches were REALLY good. The ingredients on the crackers and in the sandwiches are different from day to day. The sandwich we had had cold cuts, aged cheese, with roasted vegetables. It was really really yummy.

The 2nd tier was my favorite. It had miniature cranberry scones with Devonshire cream and raspberry jam. It was so yummy. The scones were not dry, and all together with the devonshire cream and raspberry jam, so good! so good.

Lastly the very top layer was pastries. They came in 3 types of pastries, but they almost always have the lemon tart because it’s one of Secret Garden’s specialties. Personally I think the lemon tarts were OK, and the pastries were good in general.

The food might not seem like a lot when they were presented on the tiers, but they were actually really filling. After 2 hours of tea drinking and eating, I still had to box some home. The rating for the quality of food and tea was no doubt 5/5.

If you’re wondering how this place end up with only 4 stars, I was a bit peeved about where I got seated. We got stuck on a very small table that was very close to the bathroom. It was such a bad location for diners because I could smell the cleaning detergents from the bathroom from time to time. It was a very high traffic area for the restaurant as there was always people going to and out from the restrooms. Having to already made an reservation 2 days in advance, you’d think they seat us at a better location. I disliked my table so much, that I don’t think they should put a table there at all. Never compromise your customer’s experience to maximize your profit.

Also the waitress was not very attentive at all. She only came to ask to refill our tea pots twice. And we waited forever to let her to box up our leftovers and give us our bill. 3 stars for the environment and poor service.

High Tea here is $25.95 per person.

This is a really good place to go to spend a relaxing afternoon, to catch up with your friends. Even though my experience was ruined a little bit by the staff and were I got seated, I’d still come back or bring my friends here.

Note: Make reservations! Street Parking.

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Secret Garden Tea Company
5559 West Blvd
Vancouver, BC V6M 3W6
(604) 261-3070
www.secretgardentea.com/

****~ (4/5)

I really wish I wrote this review earlier so everyone can also enjoy their awesome Christmas special baked goods. Sorry guys.

I first had Swiss bakery’s Christmas Stollen and gingerbread man at a house party. I’m never really big on Christmas desserts, but I really liked the Christmas stollen. The stollen is very dense, but moist. It is like a fruit cake except so much better. They certainly didn’t skimp out on the fruit ingredients they put in there, as the stollens only come in 1lb, or 2 lbs loaves. That’s serious bread business. I look forward to have them again next Christmas.

I decided to pay a visit to the bakery a few days later to pick up some bread and baked goods for my own Christmas dinner. Like always, when I visit a bakery, I left with more than I went for. I got the stollen, and the gingerbread man, and I also picked up their very famous Pretzels. They sell these everyday, but sells out really fast. I was in luck that there were only 2 left when I got there, I brought both of the home. These pretzels are a little funny looking compared to the regular ones, but they were good, and soft. The amount of salt on top was just enough. I like.

I still really want to go back to try other European bread products there because I’ve heard a lot of good things about this place. Also, they’ve just came out with Valentine’s day specials, I’ll make sure I’ll do a review on them before Valentine’s day this time.

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Swiss Bakery
143 3rd Ave E
Vancouver, BC V5T 1C7
(604) 736-8785
http://www.swissbakery.ca/
www.twitter.com/swissbakery
www.facebook.com/swissbakery