On a sunny Sunday, the wife and I drove to Costco in Tsukuba. We were going to get some pizza for lunch and possibly do some shopping. Upon arriving to Costco, we saw the sign in the parking lot saying "満車 " mansha, which means that the lot is full. We also saw people running around and the utter chaos of Costco on a Sunday. We promptly turned around but wondered what we would do for lunch. I then remembered that a certain bakery with cheese bread is nearby and suggested to the wife that we go there. The wife agreed and off we went to Antique.
Antique
Antique is near by IIAS mall in Tsukuba and is attached to the WonderGoo in that area. So either before or after you buy your delicious bread, you can browse the movies, music or video games WonderGoo has to offer.
When you walk into Antique, you will see that it has the same layout as most bakeries do in Japan. A row of different breads and pastries, tongs which you use to pick up whatever you want and trays to put all your delicious bread on. Because of covid, all the bread is wrapped in plastic which I can agree with. When you start at the beginning of the row of all the delicious breads, you will see that is where all the round amazing cheese breads are.
Let's Get Started!
The cheese breads look so appetizing, it is hard to choose just one. The wife and I decided to grab Antique's original cheese bread. There are two sizes you can choose from, small or large. We obviously chose the large size. The cheese bread comes in a kind of ring looking bread with cheese in the ring and cheese in the middle of the ring. It looks like cheese heaven. The wife chose another ring looking piece of pastry that had different berries in it. This berry pastry comes in a whole ring or half a ring. The wife chose half a ring. We almost bought the delicious looking melon bread but it would have to wait for next time. The wife also picked up a great looking croissant which I was looking forward to trying.
More Awesome Looking Bread!
The next part of the row had this pizza looking bread, garlic bread and all other types of bread for all bread lovers. The garlic bread looked amazing so I grabbed a small loaf of that. The wife chose a lemon cream pie pastry. When you move along the row of breads and get to the end, there is a small refrigerated section which holds these cups of pudding (I mean Japanese pudding which is more like a flan). The wife wanted to give those a try but I remembered it was a friend's birthday the next day. So we got our friend that pudding. According to her, the pudding was amazing and she was going to buy more the next time she was in Tsukuba. After we finished grabbing our bread, we headed to the cashier.
Antique has a wide eat in area that we contemplated eating at but in the end we decided to do take out and eat at home.
Our Bounty!
We were ready to try all our new bakery delights. The wife decided to make some pasta that night so we would have the bread we bought with our pasta. I was really excited to try the garlic bread with my pasta. But first, we decided to try the croissant as a snack. The croissant was not bad. Nothing really great about it, but I did enjoy it. It was soft on the inside and had that small amount of crunch on the outside that every croissant is supposed to have. So I give it a thumbs up.
Lemon Cream Pie
Next up, we tried the lemon cream pie. The wife loved this pastry and I thought it was OK. It had a heavy flavor of lemon, which I don't hate but not a big fan of. It was nice and soft which was great. After, the wife finished making our Nagoya style pasta (I helped!), we sat down that night and got ready to try the rest of our breads.
Berry Bread
Oh! I almost forgot! Before our pasta, we also tried the sweet ring pastry that my wife selected. It was a berry ring pastry. It had shaved nuts on top, with powdered sugar and pieces of different berries in the pastry. The wife really loved this pastry and did her Japanese "おいしいいい " sound every time she bit into it. I enjoyed this pastry as well. I would say that it had a strong flavor of strawberry more than any other berry which is just fine with me. Strawberries are the best berries in my opinion.
The Garlic Bread
With pasta comes garlic bread of course, and Antique's garlic bread was spectacular. The first thing I did with this garlic bread is heat it up in the microwave. Now, I know some of you maybe rolling your eyes and saying "garlic bread goes in the oven." And you are 100% right. I should have put it in the oven, but it was still amazing garlic bread coming out of the microwave. When I first checked out this garlic bread, I was a little weirded out by it because it was incredibly soft. I am used to eating crunching garlic bread. You know, that garlic bread that you get a big crunch on your first bite, and then a tidal wave of garlic flavor floods your mouth. Antique's garlic bread still had that tidal wave effect in my mouth but it was followed by soft delicious bread. It wasn't bad at all, and I really liked it. I highly recommend Antique's garlic bread, especially having it with pasta. I will be buying this garlic bread again but next time I will give it the old oven treatment.
The Cheese Bread
Finally, we come to the bread that was my main objective when we went to Antique. The bread that I fell in love with when I visited Antique a few years ago. The cheese bread. Oh man, this cheese bread is incredible. Again, I should have put this cheese bread in the oven but the microwave melted the cheese all the same. I cut the ring looking bread in half and the wife and I ate our halves in bliss. So much delicious cheese in that soft delicious bread. I believe this cheese bread has gouda and mozzarella cheese in it. It was a delight to bite into that bread and get that soft gooey delicious mixed cheese flavor in my mouth. I kept telling myself that I should have bought another one for breakfast the next day. This cheese bread was so good and the wife agreed. We were so full from the pasta, garlic bread and berry pastry but we pushed through and finished our delicious cheese bread in total cheese happiness.
I hope you can experience this awesome bakery if you are around the Tsukuba IIAS mall area. All the bread and pastries I have tried in Antique have not disappointed thus far and I do plan on going back whenever I can. I cannot stress enough that you have to try the cheese bread and I will also add the garlic bread to that list. The garlic bread really surprised me in a very good way. Antique is a great bakery and a plus is, when you are done shopping for your bread there, you can go into WonderGoo and check out everything they have.
So, if you have a craving for some awesome bread or pastries, why don't you give Antique a try. Who knows, you might see me there, in front of the cheese bread wondering how many I can eat that day.
Enjoy!
For more information on Antique, check out their website:
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