I ♥ Patisserie Harmonie, it is cute and full of mango goo

Also, you can buy bubble tea there.

Why have I not boughten (that’s a real word!) bubble tea there yet????  Mysteries of the world never cease to amaze me, darn I really well should.  That will be a special mission, and Cloudy has never even tasted bubbly chew-orbs of tapioca weird/awesome suspended in milky sweet and creamy cold drink!  I really must remedy that, too, and soon….

Okay, onto the post.  I adore Patisserie Harmonie!  It first appeared as if by magic, a golden halo-d sun rising glorious from the depths of the otherwise boring-tastic Guy-Concordia metro, a Hong Kong style bakery offering impossibly cheap Puffybuns (another new word) in both sweet and savoury forms.  I’ve also been to the Chinatown location which is smallery, brighter, has more modest selection but is in the best neighbourhood in Montreal.  Choose your panacea wisely. ;)

I haven’t even begun to sample their savoury things, mostly because I get so distracted by the panoply of desserts while I’m there, gleaming all perfect and full of things I love to eat, like red beans, matcha, custard, and nuts.  That being said, the perfectly crisp and square prisms of garlic bread are calling my name at the moment – another reason to return!  And to try the pork buns.  But of course.

Last time we sampled some green tea cake.  Usually, I’m not a fan of chinese sponge, finding it a little rubbery and filled with icky frosting, and yes, I’ve tried real chinese sponge in China!  Amazingly though, Harmonie’s green tea cake is actually great!  I mean, it’s a mild sweet buttery thing, not heavily tea-ish, more vanilla, but honestly really good for matching with coffee, and the frosting was even not offensive!

Wow, I’m really laying on the praise here, huh? ^_^  hehe.

Another knocker-out-of-the-park (praised by my old roommate as well) is the mango bun.  It’s a towering square-ish donut-y thing filled with the most lovely of mango custards.  MMMMMMM is the sound you make while eating this and swearing you will bike all the way home from Rene Levesque.  MmmMMMMMMMM.   (The red bean bun was a bit sweet for me, but only a bit, and still very fresh and flavourful.  Red bean stuff is always sweet, anyway)

Ummmmmm oh weird, I guess that’s all that I’ve tried there!  Ha, well, apparently that was enough to win me over to the side of exclamation points and superfluous gushing.  That, and, I’ve tried a few Hong Kong style pastries here and there, both in Montreal and elsewhere, and these are the real deal.  Solidly made, good clean flavour, and very, very fresh.  They even have those egg tarts that are so good after Dim Sum.

OH right!  I tried the sesame mochi too, which was another winner and hit with intense sesame-essence from oh, maybe 3 different angles.  And I’m not even usually a mochi fan.

<3 <3 Harmonie.  Wish there was one closer to my house.