85°C: Hokkaido chiffon at Washington Square

On the first level of Washington Square in Tigard, at 9753 SW Washington Square Road, 85°C Bakery Cafe puts a Taiwanese chain within reach of Portland, as long as you don't mind the drive. It was the brand's first Oregon shop, opened in late 2019, and people in Portland kept recommending it until one visit made it obvious why.

If you've never been to an 85°C, here's how it goes. You pick up a tray, walk along the case and load it yourself, and staff wrap everything up at the register. The breads are baked in the shop in hourly batches, and on a good visit there are more than fifty pastries, sweet and savory, so you'll probably end up with three buns you didn't plan on. The chiffon cups sit in little paper collars, pale vanilla and pink strawberry, next to golden garlic cheese bread. The name comes from coffee temperature, 85° Celsius, which was the brewing point founder Cheng-Hsueh Wu liked. People come for the chiffon, but very few trays leave with only chiffon on them.

It gets busy. On weekend afternoons the line can stretch toward the mall corridor while shoppers hover by the racks waiting for the next batch, but it moves, and the wait is a good time to plan your tray. Hours run later than most Portland bakeries, into the evening on weekdays and Saturday and a little shorter on Sunday, and with no 2 p.m. sell-out to beat, the drive feels a lot more reasonable.

Start with the Hokkaido chiffon, vanilla chiffon, cream and strawberry in a cup that looks like it might collapse and never does. It's light and milky, and ordering two is easy to justify. The Hokkaido tart is the custard version and a nice addition if you already have chiffon. The warm, pull-apart garlic cheese bread belongs on every tray, and even people who say they don't need anything else pick it up, which is why it shows up in nearly every write-up of this shop. The pork sung bun is the Taiwanese bakery classic, sweet-savory floss in a soft bun, and the matcha red bean swirl is green, speckled and a little bittersweet.

It's easy to overload the tray, so five things and a drink is a sensible place to stop. Try the sea salt coffee, a sweetened Americano under a thick sea salt cream cap. It's a lot of cream and good for splitting, and it still deserves a spot on a first visit. Cakes travel well too, so a whole cake for later is a fine alternative to one more pastry eaten in the car.

This is Tigard, so plan for the drive and the mall parking. Grab a tray at the front instead of waiting to be seated. If a bun looks pale or tired, skip it and wait for the next batch, since they come out every hour and the staff restock warm trays while the line keeps moving. Soft bread and chiffon are what you came for, and they make the drive worth it.