Bakery Review: Bakery Li&U
Li&U ranks as one of The Hague’s best bakeries for consistently delivering decent Cantonese baked goods for an unbeatable price.
Under the glowing red lamps of Chinatown stands a gem forgotten in the zeitgeist. Located behind De Bijenkorf, a small door leads to a darkened room. As soon as your eyes adjust to the darkness, you’ll find yourself standing on peculiar green vinyl floor meant to replicate the grandeur of marble. You’ll see two televisions along the wall that are a bit too small advertising bubble tea, a pillar made of mirrors advertising a discount for packs of twelve, and bakers manipulating doughs for tomorrow’s bakes. Step up to the shiny display cases and you’ll be treated to a view of dozens of Chinese baked goods on offer.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is Bakery Li&U, an old-school Hong Kong style bakery that’s long served the local community with affordable cakes and baked goods.
In this review of Bakery Li&U, I try the roasted pork bun, the roasted pork puff, the chicken curry puff and a melange of their sweet offerings.
As the bakery segment heats up and the price of a croissant pushes 4 euros, Li&U stands out as a bakery accessible to everyone. When each baked good is €1.80 and two make a lunch — that’s a meal on the go for less than a price of a croissant.
Get the roasted pork bun, the best in the city
For the uninitiated, Li&U undoubtedly serves The Hague’s best roasted pork bun (cha sieuw bao). A voluptuous bun filled with slowly roasted pork, tender sweet onions, and beautifully burnished on top — this is what you come to Li&U for. The bun is soft all around, exactly how it should be. The teeth sink easily into the slightly sweetened bread making way to the bite of the unctuous roasted pork seasoned with hoisin sauce and oyster sauce. Is it the best roasted pork bun ever? No, this isn’t Asia but nonetheless, it’s sweet, savoury, and just delicious. Grab two for a filling lunch when you’re on the go. You can’t beat this value.
8.0/10
For a more decadent bite, try the roasted pork puff
For a more decadent bite, try the roasted pork puff (cha sieuw pastei). It’s generously stuffed with the same unctuous pork filling, this time encased in a flakey and light crisp dough. It crumbles beautifully, rather than flaking as a croissant would, giving a delightful textural contrast of crumbly pastry and tender pork. Nitpicking here, I wish the pastry was larger to get more filling per portion of dough, but in terms of price-quality ratio, I cannot complain much.
This baked good exemplifies how Cantonese baked goods straddle the line between sweet and savory, falling into both territories at once. Have this with a cup of tea as a mid-morning or afternoon snack.
7.0/10
Try the chicken curry puff, a unique experience
For a unique pastry, try the chicken curry puff (kip kerrie pastei). Immediately, you’ll get a whiff of what smells like the inside of a Surinamese eethuis. Shaped like a triangle, small pieces of cooked chicken are enveloped in a rich turmeric stained curry sauce. Is it perfectly laminated? — no — but it’s also not a croissant. Quite odd to say, but it has a hint of sourness that lifts the pastry. And it’s delicious. Give it a try. It’s a well-balanced treat that may just surprise you.
7.8/10
The sweet assortment is alright, suffers from artificial flavours
The red bean pineapple bun (rode bonenpasta broodje) is a sweet bread dough filled with unsweetened earthy red adzuki beans and topped with a pineapple crust. The bread dough rises nicely despite the heavy crust on top. While the beans give a nice contrast to the sweet bread, the pineapple crust tastes like artificial vanilla and the whole thing is almost too cloyingly sweet.
6.5/10
Li&U serves a decent egg tart (ei taart) that will scratch the itch if you’re craving one. The filling is silky smooth with a flan-like texture. However, again, it is too sweet with an artificial vanilla taste that turns me off to it.
5.8/10
As soon as you enter, a pandan green glows from the display case, beckoning visitors to look. It’s hard to resist looking at it. And fortunately, it’s pretty good. This is the pandan coconut roll (pandan eirol), a light and soft Swiss roll filled with whipped cream and hints of coconut. Although the pandan flavour is most likely artificial, the cake is nonetheless floral and aromatic and makes for an easy light snack.
6.7/10
The Hague Review: 7.1/10 for fantastic savoury baked goods at an affordable price
The new wave of modern bakeries at once serve multihyphenate baked goods (blueberry-matcha-yuzu croissant anyone?) and fodder for an instagram story. And old-school bakeries like Bakery Li&U serve neither. But they don’t need to — they’re gems in their own right.
These are the types of bakeries that have long served communities without any froufrou. Visit and you’ll find a melange of guests from students, builders, shoppers, entrepreneurs, and workers from diverse backgrounds. And for good reason. It’s authentic, affordable, and the type of place you find yourself coming back to throughout the years.
Come for an affordable snack between shopping, come when you miss Cantonese style baked goods, come to pick up afternoon tea treats, or come to try a different type of bakery. Get one, get six, or twelve — they go down easy.
Bakery Li&U
Gedempte Gracht 263
2512 AM Den Haag
