I recently joined Tous Les Jours' rewards program, and the welcome offer is a free cookie, which…read morereally should be rephrased as "free tub of mini cookies" instead. I was originally planning to redeem that offer at this location, which is closest to me, but when I was about to check out, the cashier mentioned that this isn't a participating location for their rewards program. I had no choice but to leave the cookies at the counter and redeem the offer at the nearby Cerritos location.
With that in mind, I legitimately didn't think I'd have any reason or rhyme to even make a purchase at this location, which is inside the Lakewood H Mart. However, I was getting hangry, and I still had a few errands to run afterwards. While I was making my way around the store and towards the checkout, I wanted to stop by to see what goodies they had in their display case.
First and foremost, in spite of its close proximity to the Cerritos location, don't get these two locations confused. The Cerritos location is a standalone location that participates in the rewards program, but this Lakewood location is significantly smaller. Apart from the front counter where you pay for your purchases, there's only one counter with a display case on that counter and some other baked goods on either side of that display case, and that's pretty much the whole store.
Did I also mention that you have to pay at their front counter? Yeah, don't take a pastry and pay at an H Mart checkout lane; that's not going to work. I will admit, however, I was a little afraid that the H Mart cashier would ask me to scan an already purchased TLJ bakery item, but the TLJ paper bag I was given was an immediate tell that I had already paid for my baked good.
What baked good did I get? The Yuzu Pie, and the only reason I ordered it was because it was the last one left in their display case. It came in at a hefty 420 calories for 13 quarters, and it was quite a large pastry that it wasn't a surprise there was only one left when I visited on a Saturday early afternoon. I grabbed their last Yuzu Pie and headed towards the front counter, initially with my shopping cart, but since there wasn't much room between their two counters, I just left my cart in front of the display case while I paid for the Yuzu Pie.
As I was paying, I asked the cashier (Sarah?) how long a baked good like the Yuzu Pie would last either in the fridge or on the counter. She simply replied that the pastries should be eaten the day of purchase and that if you're not going to eat it that day, put it in the fridge. Okay, but that didn't quite answer my question of how long exactly. I didn't want to counter with another question since I was already planning on eating it right after leaving the store. However, it would have been good to know if, for example, it would have held up well for a good treat the next day or even the day after that.
Anyways, Sarah placed the Yuzu Pie and my receipt in a TLJ paper bag to signify my having purchased the baked good. And after paying for my H Mart groceries just a few minutes later, I went outside to enjoy my sweet treat.
The Yuzu Pie came wrapped just like most of their other pastries. I didn't actually take note of which pastries come unwrapped, but I believe most, if not all, of the pastries at this location are wrapped.
I don't really know what Yuzu tastes like, and after eating that pie, I still don't know what Yuzu tastes like. It wasn't a bad pie per se, but the flavor of the fruit didn't come out as strong as evidenced by the rather thin layer of filling inside the handheld pie. I did like how the pie was pretty flakey similar to a croissant, but it was mostly hollow inside. While I appreciate how this made the pastry not as dense, I felt they could have added more filling inside the pie so I could have enjoyed it better.
At least the price point was reasonable for this pastry, whose size I'd say was somewhat comparable to that of a Hot Pocket or a burrito. I can see Paris Baguette selling a similar pastry, but for a dollar more, which I think would be a bit much, especially if they were to skimp on the flavor and filling as well.
Overall, not a bad shop to go to that if you've spent a great deal of time shopping inside H Mart, it would make for a decent spot to treat yourself to a nice treat. However, like I said, you can't earn rewards points with purchases from this location, so I probably won't make another purchase here unless I get hangry again while shopping inside H Mart.