JJ Bakery

What a nice surprise! I was waiting for Chef Tony's to open across the way and saw this bakery and decided to go in and they have really delicious looking pastries and I got the matcha charcoal cake roll and strawberry angel cake. My boyfriend bought a savory rice roll with meat and a pastry with meat and they were so yummy! Tip - you can only pay with card if you spend $5 or more otherwise cash only.

Cute little bakery with lots of great treats. It is like a smaller version of 85C. I got the mango pudding and double cheesecake and they were both delicious, not too sweet which is the best part. There is a minimum $5 order to use credit card.

I’ve been going to this bakery for years. It’s my go to for Taiwanese bread and cookies. I highly recommend the buttermilk puff pastry, pineapple buttermilk bread and Taiwanese egg tarts. The hotdog with scallions, red bean bun and green tea cookies are all delicious. They also make cakes for all occasions. The hazelnut chocolate cake is really good. I tried the pork steam bun, pineapple pastry and matcha croissant previously. Sadly, I’ve had better. All in all, the bakery has something for everyone.

Went there got a few pork and vegetable bao buns, mochi red bean, cream custard and raisin pastries. All were fresh and delicious. The bao buns were nice and flavorful full of seasoning and spices. Prices are decent as well.

From the perspective of food quality only, they are top notch and comparable to (or should I say even exceed) 85 Degrees’ quality. However, their service quality is nowhere close. We made a phone call during the 10% discount period to pre-order a Mother’s Day Coconut Taro Cloud cake to be picked up in the morning of the day before Mother’s Day. As expected, the lady on the phone wrote down my name, the kind of cake that I pre-ordered and my phone number. I asked whether I had to pay on the phone for the pre-order and she said I would pay when I would pick up the cake. Then when it was the day and time to pick up the cake, I was asked by the staff for the “order number”, which I was not given when I called to pre-order. Then the staff asked me whether I paid, and I told her whoever wrote down the order for me on the phone said I would pay when I would pick up instead of instantly. In return, the staff asked me my phone number when I called to make the pre-order, and I gave accordingly. As a result, she checked and told me they still didn’t have my pre-order. Thankfully, there was a Coconut Taro Cloud cake in display which they were OK to let me buy it. However, due to “no pre-order”, I had to pay in full instead of getting the 10% discount even though I was able to show my iPhone call record. What’s more ridiculous is that, on the same day when we were having dinner in the evening, they kept calling me and left me voice message that they were still “waiting for me to pick up my pre-order”. Finally, I decided to call them back and when the lady on the other side of the phone told me I “haven’t picked up my pre-ordered cake” yet, I had to tell her that I already picked up mine and had to pay in full. She checked with other staffs on her end instantly and confirmed that I had paid for my cake in full rate. She apologized but the damage has already been done!!! My advice to JJ (not just this location but every location in general): If they have plans to expand their business base, they’d better hire people with much better fluency in English. Those who don’t know or are not fluent in Mandarin will have a very hard time communicating with them at least on the phone if not in-store. Besides, they need to make sure every staff knows and executes the same process and procedures for phone orders, because obviously in my case somebody (the pre-order staff on the phone) had a disconnect and missed some steps in the call (e.g., giving me the “order number”). Until they can correct these issues and provide better service quality, their business areas can only be restricted to the Pan-Asian (or particularly Mandarin-speaking) communities only instead of the business success currently enjoyed by 85 Degrees.

Along with its famous cakes, JJ is known for their Taiwanese stuffed sticky rice roll aka Fan Tuan. Basically, you can get your Taiwanese breakfast craving satisfied here. Opens early in the morning, for all those who need to travel far to work, JJ has quick and ready to go breakfast for you, I normally get a hot soy milk drink, a You Tiao ( fried dough) and a Fan Tuan for my to go breakfast. As we go on a trip, we would stop by here first to stock up on breakfast with the normal Taiwanese breakfast items and some pastries for the road. Yesterday we got ourselves a Fan Tuan with Taiwanese sausage and YouTiao, Shaobing ( Taiwanese pancake with egg), and some pastries including a coconut turnover and a almond danish for a trip to the Central California. They were all delicious and yummy. We had a good time eating them on our trip. Besides Taiwanese breakfast, JJ has decent birthday and wedding cakes. The cakes are nicely decorated and come in varieties of flavors and stuffing. We had ordered a few cakes here for special occasions.

JJ Bakery Arcadia – A Letdown for Classic Chinese Bakery Lovers I judge a Chinese bakery by two staples: the pineapple bun (bolo bao) and the BBQ pork bun (char siu bao). These are the foundation of any good bakery, the true test of skill and tradition. Unfortunately, JJ Bakery in Arcadia failed that test. Walking in, I should have known better. The selection leaned more toward the polished, trendy side—reminiscent of 85°C Bakery—rather than the down-home, Hong Kong-style bakeries I crave. But I still held out hope for those classic flavors. That hope didn’t last long. The char siu bao was my first disappointment. Covered in sesame seeds, it was already sending warning signals. A good BBQ pork bun doesn’t need distractions—it should speak for itself. Biting in, the filling was moist but shockingly bland. Where was the depth? The balance of sweetness and umami that defines a proper char siu bao? Nowhere to be found. I left JJ Bakery wishing I had just gone somewhere else, somewhere that respects the classics instead of chasing trends. If you’re looking for true, time-tested flavors, this isn’t the place.

I bought a bag of toast bread on Friday afternoon, but by the next morning, when the kids were eating it, there were already a lot of mold spots. I also couldn't find the expiration date on its packaging.