Opening of the new Bob's bakery Rockville

Had the opportunity to check out Bob's bakery today in its opening. With Bob's noodles location sold off, Bob is onto the new bakery thanks to the wild success of another on the pike. The store is pretty spacious with bread and cakes on one side and eating area for prepared small dishes on the other. The selection of the bread is fair, with older style Taiwanese breads in plain packaging. The prices are good, appearance is not as flashy as the other store and taste is fair. The problem may be that they are baking off site versus the other store where it's piping hot sometimes. With a number of Taiwanese housewives boycotting the other store mired in infidelity controversy, this store may capture that customer base in the short run. I do hope they refine their recipes, get some newer styles going, spruce up their packing and get it hot the same day for longevity. That may at least put them ahead of Little Bee's bakery which we pushed for their survival.

As we have boycotted Kong Fu Tea for their p*ss poor service with an attitude and artificial stuff we tried Bob's bubble tea and it's slightly worse than the old Bob's. No selection looks like it's done as a sideline. We don't have any fantasies that they are trying to capture that part of the market.

We had high hopes for the prepared food section as there are a whole variety of Taiwanese night market foods not offered in the area which they could dominate. Yes, they have the gourmet food channel blasting on TV like Temari but the selection and quality so far obviously don't follow that on TV. The cooking style, the menu selection still resemble that of a typical Chinese restaurant. Some of the stuff is done nicely and some I would give time. There is a whole segment of Taiwanese night market dishes which they could capture. Some of them are on Bob's Shanghai menu which I hope they would not mind offering in the new place (hands tied at this point?). They do offer Taiwanese breakfast sandwiches and pancakes both may be potential winners but they need to offer it all day like Micky Dees. Overall, I hope they refine their breads, more selection on the Taiwanese small dishes and maybe refine their teas. But I have a sense they are going to stick to what they do best, running something resembling Bob's noodle.

Hopefully by the time you read this, they would have gone through their soft opening and experienced them at full service. Let me know what you think.

Enjoy...