Cake-Ya

Restaurant: Cake-Ya
Cuisine: Japanese/Desserts/Bakery/Fusion
Last visited: May 26, 2010
Location: Port Moody, BC
Address: 2415 Clarke Street
Price Range: $10 or less

1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!

Food: 4.5
Service: n/a
Ambiance: n/a
Overall: n/a
Additional comments:

• Japanese owned/operated
• Japanese bakery/dessert shop
• Specializes in Japanese desserts
• Most popular for creme caramel
• Creative/Fusion Japanese desserts
• Fresh, homemade
• Small selection of Asian roll cakes, tarts and cookies
• Mom and pop shop
• To go/take-away only
• Homemade mochi or Daifuku (available on occasion)
• Cash only
• Tues-Sat. 11am-6pm
• Sunday 12-5pm
• Closed Monday

**Recommendations: Matcha Creme Caramel, Black Sesame Creme Caramel, Okinawa Shortbread (Matcha cookie)

Cake-Ya is a small Japanese bakery in Port Moody specializing in homemade desserts. They specialize in Western and European desserts made with Japanese flavours, style and modern twists. If it wasn’t for the tiny location and presentation it could easily pass for a dessert at a nice sit down restaurant or elegant afternoon tea. They are creative with their recipes and I was definitely impressed and it was a wonderful and random surprise to find in Port Moody.

The location is mainly for retail and take-out orders. It is a tiny mom and pop/hole in the wall bakery that has become a local favourite in the area. It looks like one of those secret places that relies on strong word-of-mouth, which I bet is true. Everything is home made, delicate and made in small batches with a focus on good ingredients and freshness. The desserts and baked goods are catered and flavoured with and for an Asian palate so everything is a bit less sweet and quite original. It is a super cute and charming place and the small staff of Japanese ladies are in country-style hair bandanas and aprons baking and making everything from scratch.

On the table:

**Creme Caramel – 4.5/6

• $2.25 (original)/$2.50 (other flavours) or $12 for 6 (original)/$13.50 for 6 (other flavours)
• Creme caramel, or they call it “cream caramel,”  is what they are most popular for.
• Fresh, homemade and available only to go.
• Creme Caramel is not my favourite dessert, but Cake-Ya makes creative flavours and they’re done very well!
• It was a Japanese style creme caramel and they put their own creative Asian/Japanese twists to them.
• Overall they were very good, but certain flavours worked better than others.

• Custard Creme Caramel – 4/6
  • Original custard creme caramel $2.25
  • The white one (2nd cup from bottom up)
  • This is their original flavour and while I wish the top wasn’t wrinkly, I could look past it because the flavour and texture was good underneath.
  • It’s very soft and silky smooth which I loved!
  • It would hold in a cup much better than on a plate though and it wasn’t stiff, but also just set.
  • The caramel is actually at the bottom of the cup and it was a syrupy brown sugar caramel. It was not thick and sticky, but quite thin in texture.
  • It was slightly more eggy in flavour than say Latin creme caramels and much less sweet than those versions too.
  • It was not too sweet, which are common Asian characteristics for these kinds of desserts.

• Matcha Creme Caramel – 5/6
  • $2.50
  • This was my favourite of the flavours.
  • It has a strong green tea flavour and it was sweet, but also not overly sweet or bitter in flavour.
  • It was very expected, but still good.
  • These ones were still warm when I had them, so they were very fresh.
  • It tasted better warm because the flavour was stronger.
  • I would warm them up.

• Black Sesame Creme Caramel – 4.5/6
  • $2.50
  • I’m not keen on black sesame, so I was not expecting to like this flavour that much. However this surprised me!
  • It was actually the 2nd least sweet of the flavours I tried, but it also tasted the creamiest.
  • It was very mild black sesame, and not bitter but still obvious. It just had a wonderful and aromatic nutty flavour.

• Milk Tea Creme Caramel – 3/6
  • $2.50
  • I thought I’d like this 2nd best after Matcha, or even the most, but I actually liked it the least. Mind you it was still good, but the flavours were a bit odd.
  • It tasted like it was made with Earl Grey Milk tea rather than Hong Kong style milk tea so it was very unexpected.
  • It tasted like there was nutmeg and vanilla in it. It was very aromatic, but for some reason the taste was off, although it sounded good.
  • I did like it more as I ate it, but it did taste like Indian Chai tea flavour rather than milk tea flavour.
  • It just caught me off guard because it was supposed to be milk tea.
  • It was the least sweetest flavour.

**Okinawa Shortbread – 5.5/6

• Pack of 4 cookies $1.50
• These cookies were the highlight for me, although they are most popular for their creme caramel cups.
• This was a Japanese style shortbread cookie and it was about the size of a hockey puck. Very affordable and worth it!
• Okinawa Shortbread – Matcha – 6/6
  • The Matcha Okinawa Shortbread was my favourite!
  • It has very fine and tender crumbs and it was very soft and crumbly.
  • It was almost like the texture of very fine soft and sandy sugar crystals that just melt in my mouth.
  • It was quite sweet and it was almost dry with a slightly crispy baked exterior.
  • The outside was almost like meringue and it was even softer than one my favourite butter cookies (from Jenny Bakery).
  • The green tea flavour was from Matcha powder and it was very evident, but not overpowering.
  • It was the best green tea shortbread cookies I’ve had to date… or ever.
• Okinawa Shortbread – Original – 2/6
  • The original cookie wasn’t even that buttery and the flavour was just very bland.
  • It was just sugary and I didn’t like it that much.
  • A non-buttery shortbread is hard to look paste.
  • Good quality butter and butter flavour is the selling point.

Matcha Roll Cake – 3.5/6

• Matcha roll cake filled with fresh whipped cream and red bean paste $6.50
• This is a typical Asian log/roll (roulade) cake, but the Japanese version.
• It was one of the softest Asian roll cakes I’ve ever had though.
• It was extremely moist to the point of hearing tiny bubbles pop when I cut into it.
• I really like the matcha cake part. It was a light, moist, light and airy sponge cake.
• It was loaded with cream and it was a bit too much for me. I would rather have less cream and more cake to balance it out a bit.
• The red bean paste was very fresh and homemade, but I’m not a fan of red bean to begin with and it was also too sweet here.
• The combination of flavours worked, but the ratio was too heavy on cream and paste that it overpowered the matcha cake part a bit.

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