French Bread. No, Really.

Don’t let the photo fool you. Vietnam was colonized by the French, and so the Vietnamese snagged one of the things France is good at: bread. The end result is some tasty combinations of cultures coming together.

I heard about Trung Nam through a friend of my parents. The word was, they had the best croissants you’d ever tasted. But there’s a catch: they only take cash, they’re only open until 1 pm, and if you show up after 10 am, all the good, fresh ones will be gone. So at 9 in the morning, I went on an excursion for breakfast.

Trung Nam is on University Ave in an area dense with cultural food. Across the street is a ramen restaurant, a place called iPho (which is super clever), and a massive Chinese supermarket. Trung Nam itself is very unassuming. The building, if I had to guess, used to be a Taco John’s, but it was definitely some kind of fast food restaurant in another life.

Inside, it smells amazing, the first good sign of a good bakery. We had to look this up: not only does the smell of fresh bread make you act kinder, but any pleasant smell will have a similar effect. So if you want to have a better day, clean up your house! (I’m really disappointed in myself for discovering that, because now I have less excuses to not clean up.)

The menu is fairly limited, which is also usually a sign of quality. It allows a restaurant to focus on what it’s good at, like how Five Guys only makes burgers and fries. Anyways, we came home with five croissants of four flavors. The croissants are $2.50 each, so I expected good things.

These croissants are really, really good. Flakey, soft, perfect for sandwiches or just eating straight. Between three people, we ate all five in less than 10 minutes. The flavored options (apple, raspberry, chocolate) were all great, but the chocolate was a bit underwhelming compared to the other two. I’m chalking it up to there not actually being much chocolate in the pastry.

Trung Nam also offers sandwiches and pork buns, which are next on our list. The bakery is on University, west of Dale St.