After much waiting for the board-ups to go down, Korean bakeshop Tous Les Jours‘ branch at Alabang Town Center finally opened last week. Located in the Cortes delas Palmas area, where Häagen-Dazs used to be, it’s directly across Bread Talk, making it a veritable bread war. Being new, it attracted a lot of curious onlookers, me included.
Upon stepping inside Tous Les Jours Alabang Town Center, the first thing that greets you are baskets upon baskets upon baskets of bread. Despite the relatively small size of the bakeshop, there’s a wide selection of bread, pastries and cake, letting you choose from sweet to savory to heavenly.
I had the chance to buy some TLJ vouchers from deal shopping site Deal Grocer when they offered some a few months ago, so I entered the store with nothing particular in mind, other than to use up the 500-peso value of my voucher.
Doing mental math as I pored through shelves of pastries, I realized that 500 pesos goes a long way at Tous Les Jours, provided you’re not purchasing cake. The cakes cost upwards of 600, so I would’ve needed to fork over a bit more, but if bread and pastries are all you’re after, 500 gets you a lot.
I spent the next few minutes going through the aisles, surprised that I’ve only reached around half my voucher’s worth when I already had a full tray. I have to admit, it’s a fun experience, just sticking anything that looks or sounds good (based on the descriptions) on my tray.
I ended up leaving the store with a large paperbag full of bread, hoping to finish them all within the next day or so. That’s the only thing I don’t like about Tous Les Jours — their bread goes stale pretty fast. But when freshly baked, their bread is really really good. Among this batch, our favorites easily included the black rice bread with a sweetened cream cheese filling, the Hungarian sausage in a curry bun with onions and a sweet mayo dressing, the castella, and the apple pie.
Of course, while those are the standouts from this batch, I’m sure we’ll have more favorites soon. Let the bread wars begin!
Hello! I see my favorite!
We tried it based on your reco. Favorite na rin ni Mama.
Inggiiiiiiiiiiiiit. I hope they open other branches near me soon. Loved them when we visited Seoul last year. Hay.
I hear their branches in Korea are much, much prettier, though I’m hoping the food’s the same
Is it as tasty as Breadtalk’s offerings? Although I’ve been hearing how cute their cakes are. =)
Tough call. I have some favorites from Bread Talk but at the same time, TLJ has some very promising ones as well. Offhand, I’d pick Bread Talk for savory (tuna bun & crouching tiger!) and TLJ for sweet.
I love Sweet Black Rice bread with Cream Cheese Filling! Perfect pambaon! Hehehe.
Looks to be a best seller, everyone I know who has tried it is raving about it. My mom loves it too, that’s why I end up with just half a bun at most. XD
Is this the only branch in the Philippines? I heard from a cousin that there’s this new Korean Bakery in SM North Annex. Hmmm… let me google.
Ah! Same one! Yay!
Yep yep, it is! So happy they opened a branch here in the South. The North feels like it’s a world away from me.
waaaahhhh it is from my place