Sweet Stuff: A Trip to Tous Les Jour Bakery.

On a recent trip to Austin, TX. my daughter and I made a beeline to one of our favorite places to stock up on goodies for the 3 day weekend ahead of us. It was the French-Asian bakery Tous Les Jour. (I don’t have a Tous Les Jour Bakery in San Antonio so my closest is in Austin.) They do have bakeries all over the US, usually in larger cities or where there is a decent sized Korean population. It is called a French-Asian bakery because the basic idea of a French bakery was used and updated with a Korean flavor. The pastries are filled with things like sweet potato, bean paste, or my newest favorite sweet pea paste. There’s breads and pastries, and cakes, and sweet rice donuts, and so many other delicious goodies too numerous to list.

When you first walk into the store you look for the stack of wooden trays and tongs, using these you stroll around and make your selections. This can take a while, both because of the interesting choices, but also because you can taste small samples of many of them.I always find it hard to narrow down my choices to what is a reasonable amount for one person to eat. Then again I’m not always known for being reasonable!

After having made our choices we went to the counter to pay and to order our drinks and cake. We were visiting the bakery mainly to pick up some yummy treats, but of course we couldn’t leave without sitting down and enjoying a slice or two of their amazing cakes. The cakes not only look beautiful, but taste delicious too. We ordered a slice of a green tea cake and a chocolate cake. Wow, I really can’t explain how good the green tea cake tasted, it was somehow cool and refreshing which is not something I thought I’d ever say about cake.

There’s a wide selection of drinks available from coffee and tea, to fruit based drinks, smoothies, bubble tea, and seasonally, shaved ice. Good as these are, it is the baked goods and cakes that bring me back time and again. Maybe it is the tastes of Korea that remind me of my visit last year, or the whole European pastry shop thing that I miss, but whatever the reason, I’ll be back.

If you get a chance to go to a Tous Les Jour bakery I do heartily recommend you do so, even if you have to hunt one down. They are often fairly nondescript on the outside, but there’s so many good things on the inside. In general the cakes and pastries aren’t quite as sweet as their US counterparts, and the bakery only uses the best ingredients. There are also savory selections and sandwiches available. But it is the sweet treats that usually bring me back. There’s bread choices too, but I haven’t tried those yet. Maybe next visit.

Have a great day everyone.