Bakery Crescent – Japanese Bakery – Arlington Heights

I had just finished shopping at Mitsuwa (http://www.mitsuwa.com ) with a friend when it occurred to me to try to find the bakery that a friend had mentioned. It was pretty easy to find, just east ¼ mile from Mitsuwa on Algonquin, in the small strip mall that houses Nikko Sushi and a Korean supermarket (I was intrigued to go in, but did not have the time).

It is a very small bakery with 20 or so options, the options we chose were quite good to delicious. Only one disappointment.

We each split one of each of the following.

Cheesy Petit Pan – Outside was not as crusty as I would like but that seems to be a common issue with bread items I’ve had from Japanese bakeries. But inside were ¼” chunks of a gruyere like cheese, very good roll.

Sausage in a long donut. Sausage turned out to a hot dog and the donut dough was nothing special. This was the lone disappointing item.

Raisin Roll – Chocked full of plump raisins, slight cinnamon taste. A slight sprinkle of large granular sugar on top. I’ll have to go back and get more for breakfast.

Blueberry/cream cheese pastry – good buttery pastry with lots of light layers, crisp exterior that had a browned eggwash to it. Excellent.

Durian cream filled “minicake” – I’m calling it a “minicake” as I don’t know the correct term for it. It was the size of a large cupcake with a large deposit of fluffy durian (stinky fruit) cream. Unfortunately (or fortunate if you don’t like durian) there was no discernable taste of durian in the cream. But still a delicious item.

Curried bread (pan) – a 5” flat foot ball silhouette shaped item, again the crust could have been more crusty, but the curried filling was terrific and abundant. I can easily see getting a couple of these for lunch sometime. Also they have Curried Egg bread which has hard boiled egg inside along with the curry filling. For $1.50, I often grab one of these and a green tea for lunch, cheap, delicious and filling.

Takoyaki - a flat roll with Octopus, Japanese mayo, bonito flakes, pickled ginger all baked. Good item.

As we were checking out, there was a heated display of fried items, all with the Japanese panchanko breading crust. There were 6 different items. We chose a crab “cake” and a sardine.

The crab item was not a cake as a cheesy gooey mess inside a surprisingly light crust of breading.

A highlight no doubt was the sardine, a flayed 4” long sardine with tail still on (picture a triangle shape w/tail on top). The sardine had this wonderful strong flavor (not fishy) and the breading was again, light IMO.

Bakery Crescent
270 E. Algonquin Road
Arlington Heights, IL 60005
847.956.6470
Closed Mon & Thurs
Open 10am – 6pm other days

Sweet Willie wrote:Sausage in a long donut. Sausage turned out to a hot dog and the donut dough was nothing special. This was the lone disappointing item.

I enjoy this item when it is toasted at home and dipped in mustard & ketchup.

This bakery was also discussed here.