Black Forest Pastry Shop

Bakery: Black Forest Pastry Shop
Address: 184 Lakeshore East, Oakville, ON
Website: www.blackforestpastryshop.ca
Style: North American, "European"??
Price: $$

My brother went bakery hunting in Oakville a couple of weeks ago on my behalf while going to look at some stuff of his own. I gave him the address of two promising places in "downtown" Oakville, and he happened to go to both. The second and better of the two will be coming up later. Nevertheless, wow, both of us still keep laughing at this place -- the complete untruthfulness of the name is just hilarious. #1: When I heard the word "Black Forest", I got pretty excited, since I thought that it probably wouldn't be German-owned, but would have... German/Germanic baked goods, which are always delicious... and pfff, far from it! #2: People seem a little liberal with the term "pastry shop", which means, in essence, a place selling pastries. A pastry, for the record, does NOT include brownies, chocolate chip cookies, and cupcakes. Just saying...

Ahem~ as I was saying, this was a somewhat deceiving/disappointing bakery in downtown Oakville, which sells your North American 'dessert' cookbook standards such as brownies, cookies and those ubiquitous red velvet cupcakes which were nowhere in sight when he went there. Actually, as my brother so nicely put it: this was the first bakery that he'd gone where he literally had no idea what to pick, not from too much selection, but lack of it. He "couldn't stand" the idea of buying something that he himself was capable of baking himself and so he settled on the "best thing there", the purely Canadian butter tarts ($2.25/each), one with pecan (or was it almond) and the other with raisins. It was the first time trying something like this (I didn't taste either of these, so I'm basing it entirely on his opinion), so he was intrigued and, in the end, admitted they were pretty good, but he'd rather eat three doughnuts for the same price. His words, not mine. -___-

Personally, I have to say I was a tad disappointed in this place as well, seeing as I wouldn't exactly say anything on their online menu or from my brother's descriptions appealed to me. This is even more true when you consider your expectations with a name like "Black Forest Pastry Shop" and come back home with brownies. Not my thing.

Rating: **