[Hole in the Wall] Bread Winner: Kawaii Bakery

Talk about a bad location: Not only is KAWAII BAKERY next to a Winchell’s Donuts, not only is it in the same Fountain Valley shopping plaza as the city’s iconic Izzy’s Bagels, but most people couldn’t find the Chinese bread maker if they tried, too. The clean, well-lit place is at the very back of the shopping plaza, next to the alley through which delivery trucks rumble. Worst of all, you’ll most likely miss Kawaii if you’re coming on Warner Avenue, since the street’s bridge over Interstate 405 shields the bakery from view.

None of this seems to affect Kawaii’s business: On a recent weekday around 1 in the afternoon, most of their trays were empty, and a line stood patiently as a small woman rang up the finds of her multiethnic clientele. Like most Chinese bakeries, Kawaii veers between French-style pastries, Chinese standards and creations that defy definition. You’ll find brightly colored mousses and slices of layered cakes smeared with chocolate, vanilla and all the other flavors your Americanized palate has come to expect from bakeries; they’re good, but go to a Hostess outlet if you want comfort desserts. Instead, walk to the west wall, where you’ll find your breakfast, lunch and dinner waiting.

Kawaii bakes daily, and you can taste the freshness in every bite of its goods. When you bite into a barbecue-pork bun, you can see each moist hog bit crammed inside, slathered with a sweet sauce that hasn’t turned. The green onion sprinkled on top of some retains a flavor as bracing as if you snuck in a bite at Mother’s Market. I’ve yet to see a pastry cost more than $1.30 (although this is apparently pricey by Asian standards), and two of those match the heft of any Togo’s or Subway special. Kawaii rotates new choices often—I tried a garlic bread the last time I visited, and it was as delicious as anything an Italian could dream up. Red bean shows up in a couple of incarnations—as a plump roll with a chewy mochi middle, in smaller bites, or as a gorgeous swirling star pattern that might remind you of a cinnamon roll. And outside of Dodger Stadium, you won’t taste a finer steamed hot dog, here baked inside a Chinese bun, than Kawaii’s.

Just one bit of advice: Pace yourself. I bought four baked treasures before heading up the 405 to Los Angeles, swearing to eat just two. They were all gone by the time I hit the Interstate 710 interchange.

Kawaii Bakery, 17020 Magnolia St., Fountain Valley, (714) 596-6178.

garellano@ocweekly.com