Author: Holly_Duncan

Goldilocks opened its first shop in the Philippines in 1966 and, following a successful expansion to the USA in the mid-1970s, finally migrated north to Vancouver in 1984. Admittedly, I was surprised to learn that this popular chain has been in Vancouver for over 35...years (where the heck have I been?), but then I’ve been ignorant to quite a bit, it seems. What surprised me even more than my own ignorance, however, is seeing that not a single TripAdvisor review has been written for this Vancouver location yet a number of comments have been written on both Yelp and Google. How come? In any event, Goldilocks is both a bakery and café. On the bakeshop side, you can find a number of Filipino classics, including: Leche flan, polvoron, coco mango premium cake, jelly rolls, and numerous preparations of ube. You can also have custom cakes made for special occasions. On the savory side, Goldilocks offers well-known Filipino and fusion dishes: Eggpie, palabok, lechon, Spaghetti, BBQ chicken, daing na bangus, tocilog and a rice medley. In short, while Goldilocks is known primarily as a bakery, it has much more to offer beyond bread and cakes. I think it would be accurate to say that this Vancouver location is “hidden,” at least in the sense that it’s easy to miss if you’re not already looking for it. The exterior signage is kind of small and the interior lighting is rather dim. In fact, for a brief moment, my partner and I wondered if the shop was even open. Maybe I’m being nitpicky here, but the low lighting detracts from what I assume is supposed to be a happy, bright and vibrant shop. On the plus side, the lady helping us with our order and selections was friendly and efficient. We ended up getting a few items from the bakery: Ube jelly roll, polvoron (2 types), ensaymada (ube and regular), and puto. Overall, we enjoyed our selections – as did the rest of the family. The Ube roll was bright and moist while the ube filling was creamy, but not sweet. The ube ensaymada was buttery and moist. I liked how the grated cheese on top acted as a nice counterpoint to the sweetness of this item. The puto – a steamed rice cake – was alright, but I found it slightly dry. I’m told that it works better as an accompaniment to a savoury dish rather than on its own. My favourite item, though, had to be the polvoron. These shortbread cookies – standard and ube – were divine. They had a nice buttery flavour, were soft and oh so pleasing to the taste buds. I would return for these alone! FOOD: 4/5 SERVICE: 3/5 VALUE: 4/5 RECOMMENDATION: Curiously, people are coming down pretty hard on this location via Yelp, but much of those comments seem to be in reference to the hot food items, which we did not try. Maybe they aren’t up to par? Regardless, the bakery items we had were quite nice and some definitely merit a return at some point. Recommended! PS: For those who may want to know, there are two other Goldilocks locations in Metro Vancouver: 1) 2728 North Fraser Way in Burnaby. This location, on top of being a bakeshop, also functions as Goldilocks main office in Canada; and, 2) Guilford Mall in Surrey. PPS: If you found this review helpful in any way please consider hitting the “helpful” button!More