Victoria's Bakery [RIP]

Bakery: Victoria's Bakery
Address: 173 Roncesvalles Ave., Toronto, ON
Website: n/a
Style: Polish, Eastern European
Price: $

[Along with a great many Polish businesses on Roncesvalles, Victoria's quietly shut its doors and is no more... and it certainly wasn't replaced by another bakery (which is the only acceptable result of a bakery closure)] 

While in Roncesvalles a few weeks ago, I decided to try something different instead of resorting always to Granowska's and Benna's, so I ventured first into Victoria's Bakery, a somewhat seedy-looking place on the outside and situated exactly next door to the venerable Granowska's. In essence, unlike their next door neighbour, they're more a deli than a bakery, as they have a cold cuts counter, a small variety of Polish products and a ready food counter. Their window features all of their baked goods, from buns to squares, although, even if it is a Polish store, it doesn't -- as blogto.com states (it was the first link when I tried to find the address) -- have very many "traditional" goods typical of other Polish delis. Yes, it's pretty much a given that they have pączki, but the majority seem to be inventions of their own: almond buns, chocolate or nut cake squares, and other squares ($2/per piece) with what looked like jam covered in a whole bunch of crumble.

Considering their somewhat unique selection, I was a little wary at first of trying it out. Add to that the fact that we went there on a busy Saturday afternoon (there was a street festival going on) and no one was in the store, and I mean the workers. There was a threesome waiting before us who wanted something from the ready-food counter and after awhile of standing by the empty counter, they started yelling "Hello!" and it still took a good two, three minutes for a worker to come out of the back. Kind of made you feel like you're in the middle of nowhere... O_O

Nevertheless, I picked out for myself (of course!!) the strange looking poppy seed bun ($1.50 -- tax included), made of danish-like dough and filled with typical Polish poppy seed mass (z bakaliami, which I'm normally not a fan of ;D) and topped with sugar, whole poppy seeds and huge chunks of walnuts. It definitely wasn't your usual bun, but I really liked it. The dough was light and fluffy, the mass quite generous (other bakeries, like Sweet Temptations from Highland Farms and some other delis, are as skimpy as you can get) and the chunks of walnuts pairing up perfectly with the inside. I don't know if I'll ever be tempted into trying the other baked goods, as they don't look very interesting, but I'd be willing to get another poppy seed bun at Victoria's. ^-^;;

Rating: **1/2