Fyi: Bread From Le Pain De Paris Bakery (Sold At Villa Supermarket)

[Jingthing]

OK, I noticed this new line of bread for sale at my local Pattaya Villa supermarket. Of course Villa Supermarket specializes in products for expats and with a name like Le Pain de Paris I reckoned the product would at least be TRYING to be western style bread, not Thai style SUGAR bread.

I've made this mistake in the past buying bread but I thought I had learned my lesson on how to detect Thai style SUGAR bread from the appearance and packaging, but I made another mistake with this brand.

They had a few flavor choices.

The one I bought was very attractively packaged and called

MULTISEED LOAF

In large lettering, it says Trans Fat Free.

Great! A hint this is a company producing healthy products.

The label says:

Main ingredients --

Wholewheat Flour , Soy Milk, also seeds listed.

That's it.

NO mention of SUGAR.

In retrospect soy milk should have been a red flag as standard soy milk in Thailand comes SUPER SWEET.

The loaf cost me 70 baht. Well, that's 70 baht down the drain because one bite and it was Thai style bread, Thai style non-western TEXTURE to the bread (total yuck to my tastes) and VERY SUGARY.

I served one slice. I ate one bite, and spit it out.

This product and entire brand is not for me clearly.

So here is a tip: if you love Thai style SUGAR bread, you've got a new option at Villa market. Enjoy! Really maybe if your palate is very different than mine (like if you're Thai) you would love this bread.

So this post presented with INFORMATIONAL intent.

For example perhaps a treat for a Thai in your life. Maybe it's really good Thai SUGAR bread (I am not one to be a judge of that). In any case it's a really pretty PACKAGE, and that's what matters, right?

https://foursquare.com/v/le-pain-de-paris/4e092d1a45ddb2875c554b92

Edited April 4, 2013 by Jingthing

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I regularly shop at Villa, as they're the best or sometimes the only place to find a variety of farang-oriented items.

But I must say, over a long period, one of the weakest aspects of their stores has been their bakery section, if one could even call it that.

For the longest time, it seemed that my local Villa in BKK was just stocking packaged products prepared by various third parties, and rarely did they seem to have anything of much appeal or interest in terms of their baked goods. (I do remember one third party brand they were stocking maybe a year or so ago that was pretty good, but then it pretty much disappeared.)

Meanwhile, both my local Tops and Foodland supermarkets have their own on-site bakeries producing their own fresh made goods, far better selection and better quality too, I'd say. They're putting Villa to shame in terms of bakery products and selection.

Right now, though, my favorite destination for baked goods, and particularly breads, is St. Etoile (owned by the Yamazaki chain) - which has a very good sliced wheat bread and a thick cut raisin bread, both baked fresh every day, that I like a lot along with many other selections, including a sliced Hawaiian bread that's pretty good. And then Toraya Japanese bakeries in BKK for some specialty items.

[kikoman]

Maybe I am off topic as I have made all my own fresh baked bread and it is quite simple, I have a bread-maker and place the required ingredience in the bread-maker on the dough cycle, when the dough comes out I make it into two loaves and place them in loaf pans and do the second rise for an hour. Pop them into a 375 degree oven for 20 mins and it done.

I found the greatest white sandwich bread recipe on the internet for making hot dog and hamburger bums and they turn out always so light and tasty and baked only for 9 minutes, I used the same recipe ,place them in bread loaf pans and increased the baking time to 20 minutes.

When I want wheat bread I put in half the Bread flour and half whole wheat flour, You do not have to use the bread maker but I have gotten use to using it.

Just an alternative to buying bread that is tasteless and do not have a source of great bread like the OP does!

Cheers:

[supashot]

Best fresh bread sold in Bkk isn't at Villa but in BigC bakeries. Made french style bread, fresh and crispy.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

My impression is that the bread stocks/availability at Big Cs can be quite variable depending on the location.

Big C OnNut does seem to regularly have fresh, locally baked French style breads packaged in tan/brown bags. I've tried them and they're quite good.

However, for whatever reason, the Big C at Ratchadamri doesn't seem to stock any of those same items, even though it has its own quite large bakery operation. And being a more central location, you'd think they'd do better than OnNut in stocking farang oriented items. But ain't necessarily so.