Pangea Bakery

After months of putting it off, we finally went here to check it out, Pangea Bakery Cafe...

This whole area near Convoy is the motherlode of all the Asian markets. Nijiya, Mitsuwa, Marukai, Zion, and a few miles away on Clairemont Mesa Blvd, 99 Ranch. Now they have an Taiwanese style bakery. One caveat about Pangea...their parking lot is narrow!!! Have fun with that!

I'd been hearing about this place from several bloggers and my  godson/nephew who actually works at the graphic design company right next door (he's the one who went as Ash Ketchum, the guy who captures Pokemon, for Halloween last year).

I thought the space was very nice but it seemed like a showroom instead of a bakery. Lots and lots of empty space. A far cry from the crowded confines of 85C Bakery in Irvine where people are jammed in like sardines and breads and pastries  are replenished every few minutes it seems. In this corner, a baby grand piano was playing music automatically.

The breads are located along two walls. They are labeled so you know what you are getting. Sorry, no close up photos of the pastries on the shelves.

There is a cold case near the pastries. The desserts looked beautiful but again, we didn't want to get anything that needed to be kept cold. On the top of the counter (near the cashier) were some assorted breads which they told me were "Half off" or basically "Buy one get one free". I had to ask what some of them were (sesame, coconut, pork, blueberry, etc). The woman working the counter was so nice and friendly but also kind of pushy (not in a bad way) in that she wanted me to try their free samples and it was bread I didn't really want to try (one had pork in it and the other had raisins). I got a few pieces to make her happy, pawned them off to TC, and had her surreptitiously toss them in a nearby trash receptacle.

Here's a few of the breads I bought - Taro Mochi (this was still warm and we loved the soft and sweet mochi filling), a hot dog bread (for better photos, see the link to Darlene's post at the end), two "pineapple" buns, and a long pastry with blueberry cream cheese filling. We got doubles of the blueberry creamcheese and pineapple buns since those were on sale. Not pictured were the coconut buns which were fantastic. Loved how sticky and crunchy the outside was and how soft the bread was on the inside.

Who else ate at Pangea Bakery?

Darlene from My Burning Kitchen went here back in May and had the hot dog bread...
Kirbie from Kirbie's Cravings went here last month and took lots of great photos of their breads.

Reviews from yelp.

Official Site of Pangea Bakery

One of the more unusual things I saw was a heavy bread that was labeled "Walnut and Osmanthus". Osmanth-what? Turns out Osmanthus is a popular shrub in Asia and its flowers are used in perfume. Some types of osmanthus leaves are used in tea as well. I'd like to go here again and try some of those other breads like the blueberry, mango cream cheese, black sesame, and taro buns.