Pancho's Bakery [Updated!]

Bakery: Pancho's Bakery
Address: 214 Augusta Ave. (main location @ 1345 Davenport Rd, Toronto, ON)
Website: http://www.panchosbakery.ca
Style: Mexican
Price: $

After returning to Kensington Market after a few years' absence, I couldn't believe my luck when right in front of me was a Mexican bakery. Purely for Cake Tour purposes, I got super excited, mainly because I don't think I'd ever stumbled upon a Mexican bakery and probably won't again unless it's Pancho's second location. (unless, that is *winks, hints, nudges* someone knows of anymore out there..) So, yay! Something new!

Anyways, the Kensington Market location is fairly small and features a few unlabelled baskets filled with sugar-coated 'breads' (the place, after all, announces "Mexican bread" on their sign), of which many look very similar. And that's the reason why I had a hard time choosing what to get, especially when I had my companion of the day, my mom, constantly whispering in my ear that everything looked "so boring". In this sense, we actually didn't end up trying one of the tasty looking breads, despite all of my protests. :/ Still, everything seemed pretty impressed with what we did bring back, so here goes~

First up was the mandatory churro ($1.50/each or 4/$5), which I didn't eat, but which seems to be the most (only) popular purchase. You can have it filled with chocolate or dulce de leche syrup, but we took ours plain, as we needed to get it back to the house without oozing, although frankly the idea of churros filled with chocolate syrup is, to me, not a pleasant one. I'll admit that. ;) Still, a churro is a churro... can't really say anything significant about it. Lol

For the second purchase for the brothers, my mom selected this flaky doughed twisty-thing ($1.50 -- yup, my names and descriptions won't be of much use to you, will they? :P) coated on one end with chocolate and sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar. This is quite similar to flaky, buttery Belgian-style "butterflies" sold as cookies for a lack of a better explanation. I didn't taste it myself, but apparently it was "really good". The guinea pigs were impressed by Pancho's and this is all they had (and the churro). *shrugs*

My pick was a square piece of bread pudding  ($1.75). It was quite dense and mushy with cinnamon baked on top and laced through the dough and during the first bite, I have to admit that it was a little weird and kind of gross a feeling, but the more you eat it, the tastier it gets. I think I'd get this again. It's really tasty and more along the lines of a coffee cake: not sweet, spiced dough, although I'll have to try some of the bread next time as well. ^-^ Yup, a return trip to Pancho's is needed.

[NEW!] While again in Kensington Market, I returned to Pancho's earlier this summer and settled on some bread this time. The spiral buns ($1.50) interested me last time and this time, I had to give them a try, despite the exclamations that they were "just dough". If you don't expect this, then I guess I should warn you. ;P Anyways, sweet, lemony "bread" curled in this cute spiral shape (unless your dirty mind associates it with something else ;DDDDDDD). It can be seen as pretty plain, but knowing what I'd be getting, I liked it. (for a comparison, think 'sugar buns' at Chinese bakeries) For the second item, I picked this triangle ($1.50) made of flaky dough filled with strawberry jam. This was... weird, mainly because the dough was of the kind that you could call it savoury. At least, you'd expect it to be savoury. The yellowness and texture was a little too reminiscent of Jamaican patties, so no one really enjoyed it so much. Still, if you don't like sugar... XD

Rating: ***