Midori - Eastside's Best Bakery
After entering the phrase "Redmond pastries", the top rated result returned was a shop named "Midori". Yelp contained the voices of many happy customers, and the photos were evidence that these were the pastries I was looking for.
A few minutes later I pulled into an industrial/business park, with the bakery being tucked far enough away from view that it guaranteed I wouldn't be finding any visual indicators that it was nearby. Luckily a sandwich board containing the single word "BAKERY" guided me to the store front.
I was greeted by a pastry case full of sweet promises.
Just look at all the deliciousness! The owners are a husband and wife, and I had the pleasure of speaking with the wife. She was the nicest person, ever...seriously. She was interested in what I was up to for the rest of the day, talked about her business, provided very informative information on where she gets her coffee (they rotate out local roasters, this week happened to be a roaster from Portland, OR), and gave me some background on her shop.
While she made me a 12oz caramel latte with house-made syrups and locally roasted coffee, she discussed the origin of her business and her future plans.
She and her husband are opening up a true pastry cafe in downtown Redmond, WA (across the street from Redmond Town Center) that will have sit-down space and more pastries. Currently, Midori is a catering business that has a very small pastry case for customers because it was never intended to be a bakery---they're a catering company!
However, it became obvious that the demand was there for their reasonably priced, freshly baked, mouth-watering delicious pastries, and they listened!
I cannot wait to visit the new Midori location, and I certainly cannot wait to return to the existing location for another expertly-crafted latte and pastry.
A chocolate croissant this size was $3.25. For comparison, Starbucks offers their chocolate croissant that is 1/5 the size for $2.25. Hell of a deal with a great return!
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