La Sem Patisserie & Ristorante

Bakery: La Sem Patisserie & Ristorante
Address: 1275 Eglinton Ave. E, Mississauga, ON
Website: n/a
Style: Italian, European
Price: $-$$

Hmph, I haven't been here for awhile. So sorry... not that any missed me, but I still regret not posting some new places to visit. I'm falling weeks and weeks behind. -_-;;

Anyways, this is from a while back. I found out about this place through an advertisement in the free Polish newspaper. For the longest time, I thought this place was Italian (it's not really as if I'd seen it before, since it's really far from where I live, but I somehow knew about it... I guess my memory for bakeries is amazing XD), but because of the advertisement, I thought it actually be Polish, just with a deceiving name. Upon driving up to it (and going slightly out of the way to get to this place), it did indeed end up being Italian after all. Somewhat unnerved by this (I've been to a few Italian places in the area and the bakeries have failed to deliver), I still took a risk and went in.. and ended up being pleasantly surprised. It's certainly not the best I've had, but probably the best strictly Italian pasticceria I've been to here. (and I just squealed and couldn't resist when I read inside that La Sem was founded by a fellow Mimi ^_________^;;;)

Their variety isn't overwhelming: one glass... thingie is devoted to large cakes (Black Forest, chocolate cakes) that didn't look exciting and the other to the individual desserts: close to a dozen varieties of cream-filled pastries like canoli, rum cakes and choux puffs, slices of cake (cheesecake, apple strudel), rather pricey (in comparison to everything else) Tiramisu. We took three small pastries (or, mignons -- ~$1.20/each) to get a sample of everything and ended up with a chocolate canoli, a cream-filled rum cake and some sort of choux creation. I had one and the brothers had the other two. None of them were really 'wow'; as a whole, they were pretty good, but the decision was unanimous: it was the Zeppola that beat out the rest. ;)

What am I talking about? Well, I seemed to have come at a good time, since they were also advertising "Zeppole" ($2.65), something which is apparently seasonal... although it only took me a few days to discover this in the Longo's flyer. XDD After four years of being in Italian studies, I really had no idea about these things. O_o So, I'm a little happy that I actually decided to follow the sign and get myself (well, I split in three) one. Zeppole are also known as St. Joseph's cakes, because they're consumed on March 19, the feast day of St. Joseph. They're rings of choux pastry which are filled with pastry cream and a jam made from amarena cherries. The top is also topped with more of the cream and a cherry on each peak. The mild cream with the light, fluffy dough teamed up with the tartness of the cherries -- mmmm... it was delicious! All of us actually regretted that we didn't just get one whole Zeppola to ourselves. ;D And, it also happened to be the cheapest I've seen. I think I've already missed the season this year (unless some stores will be nice enough to keep them around for a little bit longer, please?), but next March 19, I think I won't be able to resist returning to La Sem for more of these delectable rings. In the meantime, maybe, when I'm in the district, I'll try their Tiramisu. I think that's the only thing I'd like to try from them; the rest wasn't so exciting, but still, an interesting trip that made me somewhat rethink my previous disappointment in Italian bakeries and pastry shops (at least here in the W. GTA.. maybe someone can offer me some places elsewhere? ;D)

Rating: **1/2