61Hundred Bread deserves its own thread.
Tucked away in the French Park area of Santa Ana, a stone’s throw from the Amtrak/Metrolink station, is one coolest bakeries. Their traditional breads and pastries have fun Asian twists.
My recent first visit was fruitful.
On this particular Friday (30 mins after opening), Mary was a line so in I went.
The blue corn masa sourdough was gorgeous. It stayed moist for days and made for amazing sandwiches and toast. The blue corn was ever so subtle.
The big winner was the sourdough milk loaf. It became the house favorite and disappeared quickly. The soft and slightly sweet slices were oftentimes just toasted and eaten plain. Even better with a schmear of buerre de bavette.
During the holiday season, the intrepid bakers roll out panettone. Via their IG stories, they chronicled how it’s made over the course of 3-4 days. Lots of care and lots of love. They kept on experimenting this year so while I got my hands on their dark chocolate chunk panettone, they ended the season with a dark chocolate chunk and candied orange panettone. I’ve never had a fresh one before and it was really quite nice. Moist and light as a feather…and a nice hit of yeast.
The pastries can be a lot of fun here. My breakfast that morning was their laminated soy glazed gochujang and charred scallion roll…this ultra savory cinnamon roll.
A blue corn muffin was topped with a dollop of honey butter. It was uber moist and my chowpup ate it cupcake sandwich style.
The Monkey Kouign is their play on both monkey bread and Kouign Aman, and that was a solid hit.
The tomato tart was laminated-based and tasted of a lovely cheese pizza.
I did not get a chance to try to ube cruffin. But I hear it was great.
I bought a bunch of things and all were consumed by family and friends. I’ll leave it up to those folks if they wanna chime in.
It’s a worthwhile stop if you find yourself in OC.
Open Thursday - Sunday 8AM until sold out/1PM. Line updates via IG stories.
