Bakeries
A cash-only Hong Kong style bakery on Hazelbridge Way that steams cheung fun rice rolls to order alongside the usual buns and pastries. The house chili oil and the egg tart donut are what regulars come for, and it opens at 7:30am on weekdays.
Cash is the first thing to sort out here, because a tray of buns and a card that will not work makes for a poor start to a morning. The second thing to know is that the cheung fun is steamed to order rather than sitting in a warming tray, which is the whole difference between rice rolls that slump and rice rolls that hold together. Regulars ask for the house chili oil alongside them.
Hong Kong style bakeries are a category most Canadian cities have flattened down to one or two survivors. Richmond has enough of them to specialize. The ones doing a particular thing properly keep their regulars for decades. Harmony's things are the steamed rice rolls and an egg tart donut, which is exactly the sort of small local invention this stretch keeps producing.
Hazelbridge Way runs behind Aberdeen Centre through the middle of the Golden Village, and the density of food along it is genuinely hard to explain to anyone from elsewhere in the country. Trays come out on their own schedule, the good items move fast, and by mid-afternoon you are choosing from what is left rather than from what you wanted. Going early and going with a plan is the entire strategy.
Aberdeen Station sits a short walk away, which makes this an easy stop to fold into a morning already heading into the Golden Village. Supermarkets, tea counters and a food court are all within a couple of minutes on foot, so a bakery run around here rarely stays a bakery run.
In the Golden Village neighbourhood of Richmond.
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Other bakeries and nearby businesses in the Richmond directory.
The Parker Place branch of Richmond's best-known Cantonese bakery, running the same tray-and-tongs format with rows of sweet and savoury buns, egg tarts and cocktail buns. Handy if you are already at the mall for groceries or the food court.
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A small pickup-only bakery on No. 3 Road working from a short rotating list of cakes and pastries. Order online or at the counter and collect at the store; their products also turn up at a couple of other Richmond dessert shops. Closed Mondays.
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A small scratch bakehouse tucked into President Plaza that bakes everything on site using French technique. Croissants are the draw, especially the double-baked salted egg yolk custard one, alongside cream puffs, cakes and matcha or black sesame pastries.
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A Taiwanese-run bakery across the road from Aberdeen Centre making deliberately oversized pastries: big madeleine-style cakes filled with custard and raisins, Hokkaido milk bread, sesame and red bean buns. Cheaper than its neighbors and take-out focused.
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An Asian bakery on Alexandra Road built around softball-sized meat floss cakes, savoury cream inside and floss outside, in flavours running from seaweed and salted egg yolk to Oreo chocolate and lemon yogurt. Unusual enough to draw people across town.
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A tiny Japanese-French cake studio on Alexandra Road, open Thursday to Sunday only. Chiffon-based entremets and choux in flavours like matcha yuzu, restrained on sugar and finished carefully. The popular ones sell out, so it is worth calling first.
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