Anseong bakery café for giant soufflé castella and walnut bread: Chat

There are days when you just want to have some bread in Anseong, sip coffee, and take it easy, right? On this day I picked a bit of everything, from sweet desserts to warm tea to an iced latte, and each menu item turned out to have such a distinct personality that it was a pretty fun meal. ^^ Especially if you love bread, this is a place that'll catch your eye.

3동 101호, 4391 Seodong-daero, Gongdo-eup, Anseong-si, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea / Daily 09:00–23:00 (last order 22:00) / Brunch & pasta 11:00–20:00

Chat Baker's location and exterior

Chat Baker is located in Gongdo, Anseong. If you're driving through Anseong or going back and forth between Pyeongtaek and Anseong, it's a café worth keeping in mind. It'd be a good addition to the list for anyone looking for cafés near Anseong Farm Land, too.

When you search for cafés near Anseong Farm Land, you tend to end up looking for large places or bakery cafés, and this day I got to properly enjoy both bread and dessert here. Before even stepping inside Chat Baker, the first thing that catches your eye is that unmistakable 'bakery café' atmosphere. The scale is a whopping 500 pyeong of cozy bakery café. These days a lot of cafés are coffee-only, but when a place has a wide variety of bread, the anticipation builds before you even walk in!!!^^

Oh, and don't worry about parking!! The lot is enormous, so you can park without any stress at all!!

Inside the 500-pyeong space and the seating

It's the most spacious atmospheric café in Gongdo — a comfortable, healing café in Anseong with great music. With 500 pyeong of space, generous distance between seats, a layout that doesn't echo, and LP records playing in the background, it's the kind of atmospheric space where you can come solo, on a date, or with a group and it all works. ^^

When you search for brunch cafés in Anseong Gongdo, you find spaces where you can enjoy brunch and bakery together, and based on what I tried this day, Chat Baker was especially fun for pairing bakery items with drinks. And the seating here ranges from floor seating to standard tables to round tables, so all kinds of gatherings are possible. ^^

80+ house-made breads, and the letdown of an evening visit

They bake more than 80 kinds of bread by hand every morning, and I heard this is the place that first became known through word of mouth for its salt bread! Ang-butter (sweet red bean butter bread), croissants, cube toast, and Gongju chestnut bread — all the bread is hand-kneaded fresh every dawn. I happened to visit in the evening this time, so quite a bit of bread was already sold out, which was a real shame. ㅠ

House-made bakery baked fresh in-store every day! They make the bases for their drinks in-house too, and there's even a professional barista pouring drip coffee!

What I ordered and how it tasted

Giant soufflé castella, walnut red bean bread, mango cream cake, grapefruit tea, house-made vanilla bean latte

What I ordered this day was quite the spread. Giant soufflé castella, walnut red bean bread, mango cream cake, grapefruit tea, and iced house-made vanilla bean latte — that's what I ordered.

Giant soufflé castella

Personally, what caught my eye most this day was the giant soufflé castella. With a name like 'giant,' you can't help but get your hopes up. And when I actually tried it, it did feel a bit different from regular castella. The giant soufflé castella clearly had a generous amount of egg in it. It had a soft, fluffy chew when I bit into it, and that distinct savory egg flavor came through. If you like the crumbly texture that's typical of castella, this is an easy, no-pressure flavor to enjoy.

Walnut red bean bread

With the walnut red bean bread, from the name alone I figured there'd be a few walnuts scattered in, but when I tried it, there were actually a ton of walnuts inside. If you love walnuts, you'll be satisfied — every bite gives you that nutty flavor. I tend to feel a bit let down when a filling is too sparse, but here the walnuts had real presence, which I liked.

Mango cream cake

The refreshing, sweet flavor of mango and the soft feel of the whipped cream made this a cake that was easy to eat all the way through. On a day when you're craving something sweet, a cake like this paired with a drink would be just right. If you're looking for something to eat slowly while chatting for a long time at a café, cake is a solid option too.

Grapefruit tea and iced house-made vanilla bean latte

A cup of warm grapefruit tea — surprisingly relaxing. Among the drinks this day, the warm grapefruit tea was genuinely delicious. Eating bread and cake tends to leave sweetness lingering in your mouth, and the warm grapefruit tea felt like it kept cleansing my palate in between.

The other drink I enjoyed was the iced house-made vanilla bean latte. If you're a fan of vanilla lattes, you know there's a certain flavor you look forward to. Rather than being artificially sweet, this one struck a nice balance between the coffee's bitterness and the vanilla's sweetness — the iced house-made vanilla bean latte I had this day was quite good.

Overall thoughts

Chat Baker was my pick for a day I wanted to enjoy bread, coffee, and dessert all at once in Anseong. From the fluffy, egg-forward soufflé castella to the walnut-packed red bean bread to the soft mango cream cake, every menu item had its own distinct charm. For anyone looking for a brunch café in Anseong Gongdo, a large café between Pyeongtaek and Anseong, or a café near Anseong Farm Land, this is worth remembering as a place to enjoy bakery items and drinks together. Next time I'd like to try different breads and compare which ones suit my taste best. hahaha