On the way back from Lake Tahoe, I wanted to make a stop at an iconic Bakery in Bishop. I had been reading about Erick Schat's Bakkerÿ for ages. Originally working at the Bishop Bakery established in 1903 by the Schoch family, Jacob "Jack" Schat an immigrant from Utrecht, who's family has a long history in baking came to Bishop in 1950 and found work at the Bishop Bakery, eventually buying the business and naming it after his son. The bakery has become an institution. It is said that it has over 2 million visitors a year! Atlas Obscura mentions that the bakery produces 25,000 loaves of bread a day. Considering that the population of Bishop is around 4,000, that would be 6 loaves per person….that's a lot of carbs!
We headed on thru Bishop and stopped entered the crowded parking lot, and voila! A car was just leaving a space! Must have been fate, right?
We had decided to stop in for an early lunch. The place was bustling, even in the middle of the week! The shop is packed with loaves of bread, cookies, and a sandwich section. The Missus decided to go bread and cookie shopping.
While I decided to get a sandwich for us to share. Calvin had told me his favorite was the turkey on the special bread of the house Basque Sheepherders Bread which has been trademarked since 1938.
I stood in the queue, placed my order, and picked it up when ready. The Missus was still shopping so I found us a table outside.
It was a nice morning, the heat hadn't settled in yet.
As for the sandwich….well, the bread lives up to the hype. The crust had a mild chew to it; the bread was so soft and almost fluffy, with a light yeasty-sweetness.
Loved the sprouts and tomatoes, but that turkey was so try and tasteless……
I'll pass on sandwiches from here in the future.
And the Missus went with a sourdough loaf instead of the Sheepherders bread! Though we'd get that on our next trip thru Bishop.
And the Missus really enjoys the cookies from here.
Just the bread and the cookies makes this a regular stop for us when we're in the area.
Erick Schat's Bakkerÿ
763 N Main St.
Bishop, CA 93514
We had a fun time on this tour.
My dishes arrived and it was interesting noting the changes since my last visit and the things that have stayed the same. First off, the Hu Tieu Nam Vang Kho is still served in a shallow, almost pasta bowl, which is fairly unique for the places that serve the dish round these parts…..tho' perhaps things have changed at other places. Also, the bean sprouts served here aren't blanched so are quite crunchy.
There were two pieces of rather tough shrimp, which at least had been deveined, the squid was well "squid pro quo", a large piece of "krab", and as usual a slice of Hainan Chicken….which is the reason I don't get the Hainan Chicken here as it is pretty flavorless. The ground pork does have some good flavor though. The dish is not protein deficient….
I must have hit the lottery on this day, because the bread was still slightly warm. It was yeasty and somewhat "crackly". Maybe the best bread I've had here.
This actually had two eggs, bacon, cheese, and a very mild chili. Basically a brushing of "beans", some bacon, mild cheese….if not for the two eggs, it might have been a bit too much bread for me. But this did fill me up.
First off, I actually thought the basic “wagyu” (heavy on the quotes) beef, while rather scarce was cut thinner, thus seemingly more tender. I liked the thin slices of oyster mushroom, which added a nice sweet-earthiness to the plate. To me, that egg is a must.
Which smelled heavenly. It came with a bowl of broth that had decent cilantro – white pepper tones, but was quite salty. And the dipping sauce, which did have a bit of spice was not my favorite as I prefer the Hainanese style white, ginger-garlic, pungent style sauce.
As for the chicken; well it was deboned, making it easy to eat, while being very moist and tender. It was a bit on the milder side in terms of flavor though. Again, if I had that ginger-garlic based sauce, I’d have been really happy. I ended up making sure I had some “chicken soul stealing” rice and chicken in each bite.
