85°C Bakery Cafe regulars: Stop me if what I'm about to describe sounds familiar. You start with tray in one hand, tongs in the other, and then weave your way through Plexiglas-shielded display shelves where breads, Danishes, and rolls in every conceivable shape are topped with pork floss, cheese and shiny hot dogs.
Then the cashier transfers what you've managed to pile onto your tray into individual plastic sleeves. For drinks, there's coffee beverages, fruity beverages, and, of course milk teas where boba is almost a requirement.
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This is Sunmerry Bakery, and like 85°C before it, it's based in Taiwan where it has multiple stores. This Irvine outlet, next door to A&J's at Jeffrey and Walnut, is its first in California, opened July 1st.
There are obvious similarities to 85°C, but actually, it's not much different from J. Sweet and JJ Bakery, which existed before 85°C came to town. But Sunmerry does have its own distinctive qualities. For instance, Sunmerry sells flans topped with fruit, chocolate, or green tea in cute and collectible mini milk jugs; 85°C does not.
And at Sunmerry when a freshly baked tray of bread comes out of the kitchen, the staff shouts “Hot bread!”; 85°C does not, because, as everyone knows, when the bread comes out at 85°C, they shout “Fresh bread!”
14805 Jeffrey Rd. Ste E., Irvine, CA 92618, (949) 431-6174
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Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.