Asian Sweet Bakery — Restaurant in Madison

Asian Sweet Bakery was on my radar this week because we found their buns in a Chinese market at Madison. Normally, the pastries you find at Madison come from the Chinatown in Chicago. It is not surprising that Asian Sweet gets the nod of the Asian community in Mad-town.

Their price is reasonable. Each bun costs $1.19. If you get them from a Chinese store, it's $3 for 3. The buns are large relatively in size, and they taste decent. The pineapple custard on the buns could be a bit "fluffier". The appeal of their egg tarts clearly shows their inexperience. Their vanilla and coffee rolls cost $4 each. I'd recommend that.

They also offer other food choices, although the selections are limited. Congee was very good, although the size was small. Other ingredients should be "boiled" by the congee, but the meat was like pre-cooked. Rice crepe was soft. The texture was excellent. However, the shrimps wrapped inside were not deveined. Once you take a bite, you can feel the xxxx in your mouth. Their fried ho fan with beef had more beef, green peppers, bean sprouts than ho fan. The balance was totally off. The noodle was also thick and in small pieces, although the taste was not bad. The peppers was kind of raw and tasteless. Typical condiments such as chili sauce and white pepper were also no where to be found.

Asian Sweet does a lot of things very well on the surface. Unfortunately, they miss the mark on small details. Many things could still be improved. Those little things are important because they tell you how much they pay attention. One small thing can ruin the overall experience. At this time, their pastries would be more preferable than the dishes.

The location of the store is very good. The environment is very comfortable. The store has the feel of authentic southern style. It is small but reasonably clean. The owner doesn't seem to know how to layout the parking space outside. One small car could take up all space. Assume that you have to find a parking on the street.

Is Asian Sweet really the best in town? A 4.6/5 (after almost 40 reviews) sounds amazing, but it really depends on what you are...

Fantastic little gem in Madison! I got the rainbow bun (pork floss bun), taro bun, coconut bun, red bean bun, sesame ball with red bean paste, and the shrimp rice crepes.

The shrimp rice crepes were great. I thought that the crepes themselves could have been a bit thinner, but the amount of shrimp I got and the perfect balance of sweet and salty when it came to the sauce made the overall dish nothing short of amazing. A solid spot to go to when you're missing shrimp rice rolls but don't want to hit up a dimsum restaurant. (Not to mention they give you plenty of sauce here! Amazing!)

^I should mention that I first attempted to get these at 4:30pm on a Friday and failed because they were out of stock. I came back the next week (again, on a Friday) at 4pm and was able to get them!

The red bean bun, coconut bun, and sesame ball with red bean paste were all very solid. Quite average! The red bean paste can get super sweet and oftentimes is not distributed evenly inside the bun, so something I like to do is slice it open (like how you slice a bagel) and then spread the red bean paste on the paste-less bread to make it a bit more equal all around.

The taro bun was the one item that I had a hard time eating. When I first bit into it, the bread on top was a bit mushy. I couldn't bring myself to down it, and upon closer inspection, I saw that the dough was actually NOT fully cooked. I put it in the microwave for a couple of minutes, and that made it fine to consume afterwards (it definitely got quite crispy), but I couldn't bring myself to ignore it when writing up this review considering the item is not a take-home-and-bake kind...

TLDR: JUST GO! (But be careful of timing as they do sell out of the best items)

I hope this place isn’t a secret to Madison residents but if it is it is legitimately the best kept culinary secret in this town. They supply a lot of the local Asian markets with legit authentic Chinese baked goods but I like to go straight to the source and I’ve learned that the best time to go is around 11 am. You can’t go too early because some things won’t be ready yet, but if you go too late you risk missing out on all of the good stuff I just cleaned them out of ;)

Cheese bread usually won’t be ready until later and is a great choice for a first visit. Think a fluffy long hunk of bread with mayo and cheese melted on top.

Next hit up anything with bbq pork in the name. At the top right of the main display case they have an additional display with smaller items. If they have any of the deep fried bbq pork dumpling thingies try them for something with a texture that will be new to most westerners but absolutely delicious (they don’t seem to make many of them so consider yourself lucky if you get some).

Last recommendation is the zonza, aka Chinese tamale. It’s rice, soybeans, and a chunk of fatty pork wrapped in leaves. I buy all they have and eat them for breakfast throughout the week. Lately I’ve liked them better heated after unwrappingthem with a little butter and salt.

They have a bunch of other stuff too and the prices are still pretty good even after the inflation that’s been hitting everyone. I usually spend around $50 and walk out with several bags full of goodies that will be lucky to survive...