The French-Korean breakfast pastries at Tous Les Jours bakery in the H-Mart Korean grocery store at 1302 Blalock are a little different. The cream puffs are filled with sweet red bean paste and the long buns are stuffed with sweet potato paste. My favorite is the sweet and savory croissant with salty yellow American cheese on the inside and powdered sugar on the outside. The bakery café also offers espresso drinks and a wide selection of fruit juices.
Tous Les Jours started out as a French bakery in Korea when fresh baguettes were hard to come by. The first full service Tous Les Jours bakery opened in Gu-Ri, Korea in 1997. Customers buying bread wanted to sit down and eat fresh croissants and drink coffee, so beverages and a café seating area became part of the concept. The company started selling franchises and now has over 1000 bakery cafés in Korea, China, Vietnam, and the U.S. There are two Tous Le Jour bakery cafés in Texas–the other one is in Dallas.
–Robb Walsh
This article appears in Jan 1-7, 2009.