Yes. We,re Eating Again.
+4
We were drawn like a moth to a porch light to Palandria Latina Bakery by photos of what is evidently a Chilean sandwich which I now, having had it, might rate as one of the best ever! The Chacarero is served on a large round slightly toasted but fluffy bun. There is a layer of thinly sliced and grilled beef, topped by a layer of green beans (who thought of that?) and a layer of tomatoes all with mayo. A true delicious masterpiece! At $11.50, this is a bargain. There are several other sandwiches to chose from at PLB. Marie and I shared the sandwich and a couple of empanadas. Again there are five choices of empanadas from which we had the chicken and the spinach. The spinach was memorable in that cutting into it released a flood of cuminy cheese and spinach. Both empanadas were generously filled and with a flakey pastry just substantial enough to keep filling in check. Finally, we shared a piece of cake that was calling out to us from the display case and we could not resist. Torta Alfajor is a layered cake with caramel between the layers. It is not of the mille-feuille type as it might appear but while the pastry layers are a little heavier than puff pastry, they are still flakey. Share this cake with a buddy if you are concerned about blood sugar! Delicious. These folks bake everything in house and the baked goods selection is not small. They also build tamales in the house which are frozen to go. We took one home for later and found it also of impressive quality generously filled, and with fluffy masa. There is probably seating for 18 to 20 people if you want to enjoy your baked goods or savouries here but we noticed a lot of take out business. They also carry an impressive number of Latin American type grocery items, many we were familiar with and other items, not so much.
The staff were friendly and patient with us despite our many questions.
Que agradable poder disfrutar de una buena empanada de horno con pino fuera de Chile, absolutamente recomendable, las de queso en masa de hoja tambien son una delicia!
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• hole in the wall, half a block walk (north) from Joyce skytrain station
• free parking along the streets
• friendly, helpful service
• Chilean background goods & pastries, family owned
• My eyes were glued to the flan as it looked so perfect & mouth watering
• several choices of breads, pastries and desserts delight, you gotta try them all!
• Creme Caramel flan $3.35: soooo smooth!!! the spoon just runs through it. It is not overpowering sweet at all, it is perfect! This will cost $8-10 in a high end restaurant
• Milhoja $3.95: Puff pastry with Dulce de leche 3.5/5 Personally I would like my dulce de leche to taste more like “Argentine” type wherein it is more creamier tasting
• There are medium and huge sized Milhojas available for $15 & $45
• Chicken empanada $4.85: a bit of disappointment for me; baked & dry pastry, big chunks white chicken meat, piece of hard boiled egg & an olive. I was not very fond of the taste, it was too dry for me
• those were the only things that I could devour at that time but will be back for more for sure!
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Although this bakery has been featured on the show You Gotta Eat Here, it doesn't seem to have garnered the same level of attention and popularity as other places in Vancouver. This is a shame really because the bakery's FREAKING FANTASTIC! As their name indicates, they are specialized in Latin American-style desserts, and features delicious dulce de leche in a lot of their goods. I've sampled their Milhoja, Torta de Dulce de Leche and Torta de Hojaldra (see below for more details). Everything was delicious (my favourite was the Torta de Dule de Leche, which is a cake filled with cream and delicious dulce de leche), and the prices are a great bargain.
Milhoja ($3.95):
3.5/5
The consisted of puff pastry with a generous layer of dulce de leche sandwiched in between. It was quite sticky and a bit messy to eat (I ended up getting caramel and pastry bits all over my fingers and lap). The pastry was a tad tough at times, and seemed to have a slightly "off" flavour. The dulce de leche on the other hand was delicious; thick, sticky and sweet.
Torta de Dulce de Leche ($4.75):
5/5
This consisted of layers of what I think is vanilla cream/mousse and dulce de leche sandwiched between cake and covered in coconut. And it was as fantastic as it sounded: the cake was soft and tender, and perfectly complemented by the cream and caramel, which lent both moisture and sweetness. The dulce de leche in this cake seems to be a bit different from that in the milhoja: it was runnier (but equally delicious). The coconut added a great fragance.
Torta de Hojaldra ($4.75):
4.5/5
Layers of puff pastry with tons of dulce de leche in between. This was like the Milhoja on steroids! While I did still find the puff pastry to be a bit lacking (I think that it might be a tad underbaked), because the layers were considerably thinner than the Milhoja, I wasn't nearly as bothered. Of course, I cannot get enough of the delicious, thick dulce de leche. I can imagine some people finding this dessert to be too sweet; for me however, it was fantastic.
I love this bakery; it's currently one of my favourite places in Vancouver for desserts. If you like dulce de leche, please do yourself a favour and head over there now; you will not be disappointed.
I am a little ashamed to admit that although I have worked in the neighbourhood for over a decade I only recently tried the Panaderia Latina Bakery. I was talking about it with some colleagues of mine and we agree that there is something about the physical structure of the sky train being between where we work and the bakery that feels like a psychological barrier that seems so far to cross.
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