Review of the San Leandro location
Since 85°C Bakery Cafe opened in San Leandro Plaza, I’ve been a devotee. This Taiwanese bakery chain has over a thousand locations worldwide, with 75 of them in California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada and Texas. I’m sure they’ll continue expanding. They offer Chinese inspired pastries with global flavors. The pastries tend to be light and airy with cream fillings, and they usually range from good to delicious. This will be an ongoing review, where I add new pastries as I try them, for my own future reference of what I liked a lot and what I liked less. As we shouldn’t be eating too many carbs, we only get pastries from 85°C Bakery for special occasions – but that makes it even more important that we choose the right ones.
85°C also serves drinks, from flavored coffee and tea drinks to smoothies, slushies and boba (if you always wanted to try a boba latter, this is the place to have one), but I have yet to have one there. Next time. They do have tables to eat inside (but no outdoor sitting), but due to the pandemic we’re avoiding all indoor dining.
Our last visit to 85°C Bakery was on the fourth day of my Birthday Week Extravaganza (TM). I had told my daughter how I preferred the pastries from 85°C Bakery to those we’d had the day from As Kneaded Bakery, and she wanted to try them. I sent Mike to get them – but I had mistakenly texted the list of what we wanted to a friend – so Mike got to chose what he brought home.
85°C Bakery has a huge variety of pastries, cakes and other desserts. Many are serve yourself, but more delicate ones – or ones needing refrigeration – are behind the counter. Pastries are individually wrapped, which is not environmentally friendly but it’s safer from a food handling perspective. While they concentrate on sweet pastries, they also offer some savory ones.
Aussie Meat Pie (vegetarian)
This is a light bun with impossible ground “beef” sautéed with peppers.
Ham & Cheese
This is a light bun filled with ham and American cheese. It’s quite tasty, and I liked it as much as the ham & cheese croissants I get at Main Street Bagel.
White Chocolate Strawberry
This bun is filled with a very light white chocolate and strawberry custard. It’s a tad too sweet for my taste, and maybe not one of my favorites, but it’s quite good.
NOT PICTURED
Mango Custard Bun
This bun is filled with a creamy mango custard. It’s quite tasty and light.
85°C Bakery Cafe San Leandro Plaza 1299 Washington Ave. C-1 San Leandro, California 510-483-8585 M-Th 7 AM - 7 PM, F-Sa 7 AM - 7:30 PM, Su 8 AM - 7 PM
I have a pretty nasty cold, so I only want to eat things which are smooth going down my throat and so flavorful that I can taste them despite my stuffed nose. Ciao Bella blood orange sorbet fit the bill perfectly.
Tempt
I found this gem of an ice cream at our local San Leandro Grocery Outlet for $2. It was the first time I came across a three twins product, but I’m one of those people who absolutely loves peanut butter and chocolate (as I write this, I’m plotting to make my husband go and get me the ingredients for a peanut butter shake), so I had to try it. I’m glad I did.
We went to Con Pane last February (2012) when we visited San Diego for the Democratic Convention. Our friend Ralph took us there for breakfast one morning – and we had enough bread leftover for lunch! I got the Sweet Bread Baker’s Plate ($4), consisting of 3 enormous slices of fresh bread (your choice), served with butter, fruit preserves and creme cheese. The bread was delicious. Probably my favorite was the Pain au Levain, your basic country white bread – with butter and jam it was just heavenly. The Kalamata Olive bread was probably my least favorite, but I’m not a huge olive fan. I recommend that you get a bread plate to share – one slice is definitely enough. We also shared a couple of pastries, but it was too long ago and I can’t recall what they were. My recollection is that they were good, but not impressive. Coffee was good, and the place quite nice. All in all, I’d go back.