Pastry House Hippo — Restaurant in Elk Grove Township

I told the boyfriend I only wanted one main thing for my bday. An Asian birthday cake. If you haven't had one before, i would highly recommend going to any Asian bakery and ordering yourself a cake just to try it. It's okay, you deserve a cake. Asian cakes are a lot less sweet than your traditional cake and is usually made with a light sponge cake. Also, the toppings is usually some kind of fruit with a whipped cream kind of frosting versus the heavier frosting. In fact, I was sad when I first saw my cake with the chocolate heart on it and not the traditional circular pattern of fruit until I was told to lift it. Yes, I like chocolate too, but not on an Asian cake. I chucked the chocolate disk to the side of the box and stared at the pretty pretty fruit-filled cake for a good minute or two. Oh, how it glistened.

Five shiny stars because it was everything that I was wanting and so much more. I'm not sure of the price, but it was the perfect size for two people. And by two people I mean, he got one slice and I got the remaining four. Score!

Also, as another edible bonus, I was given some random pastries that the store sells including two of the cheese puffs (like Fogo de Chao), octopus bun, red bean and a green tea-looking bun. Even after being in the fridge for a few days it was still good. Good job...

Quality of this bakery dropped drastically in recent years. We’ve gone to Hippo since it first opened inside Mitsuwa, and the changes are immense. Pastries which used to be all uniform and perfect are now often misshapen and burnt. They are inconsistent in size, some pastries like the french cream are much smaller now. And lack that trademark Japanese style of “stretchy” bread. You pay a lot more money for less item and less quality. We always ordered a cake here for every bday and event. We had one recently and were shocked at how badly it was put together. The whipped cream topping was not applied properly or smoothed out. The strawberries were not cut to size, large halves sloppily shoved in the filling. The cake itself was crumbly and dry. No longer that spongy moist classic Japanese cake. Hippo has lost its roots and consistent quality.

I doubt it will ever return to how great it used to be, just like the...

My fiance and I drove 3 hours to Illinois from Indiana and then another hour from our hotel room so we could visit Mitsuwa Marketplace as we both are big fans of all things Japanese. This bakery was definitely one of the biggest highlights of our trip to Chicago! It's nestled away in the grocery side of the store so we almost walked right past it, but I'm so glad we didn't! Their employees were so polite and kind, definitely a breath of fresh air. All of their cookies, cakes, buns, breads, etc looked so tasty I wish we could've brought more back with us but our room didn't have a refrigerator and we weren't going straight back there anyways. I wish they shipped their food because I would purchase a whole lot more than I was able to bring back with me! We're definitely coming back soon though for a day trip and you bet I'm going to be...