Paris in a school bus

PanDa Fresh Bakery @PanDaBakery

Yaletown (Pacific and Drake)

Parked on Pacific Boulevard and Drake St. in trendy Yaletown is the PanDa Fresh Bakery school bus. You won’t miss it: the big yellow school bus with the PanDa Fresh Bakery scrawled across the windshield in happy, fluorescent marker. Manned by Engineering student, Derek Ip, who makes fresh croissants daily, PanDa Fresh Bakery’s menu offers savoury croissant sandwiches as well as irresistible dessert croissants filled with everything from ice cream, candy bars to cheesecake and s’mores. Naturally, I had to order two croissants, one for my lunch and another for dessert: the smoked salmon and cream cheese croissant (which disappointingly, Dennis informed us he may wipe off the menu soon) and the cheesecake croissant.

The actual croissants themselves were definitely melt-in-your-mouth buttery, and light and flaky to perfection. My smoked salmon croissant sandwich completely hit the spot for my salmon craving, the tomatoes and lettuce added a freshness to the sandwich, and made for a very well-balanced lunch. My cheesecake croissant is what convinced me that I have to go back to PanDa Bakery to try all the other dessert croissants. If there is one thing that I dislike about cheesecake, it’s the graham cracker crumb crust. I prefer shortbread crusts. PanDa Bakery’s cheesecake didn’t have a shortbread crust but had something even better-a ladyfinger cookie crust! The cheesecake itself was sweet with a hint of lemon, which is exactly the way a New York cheesecake is supposed to be. Basically this croissant consisted of a creamy cheesecake on top of a cookie wrapped in a scrumptious croissant. It was Paris meets New York in the best way possible.