Lazar Bakery

Bakery: Lazar Bakery
Address: 325 Central Parkway W, Mississauga ON
Website: http://www.lazarbakery.com
Style: Portuguese
Price: $$-$$$$

The "famous" Lazar (so says their sign) is a Portuguese bakery, deli and cafe that has a quite a bit of variety of cookies, doughnuts, baked goods, tarts and cakes. Overall, I'll start this by saying that Lazar, as a whole, is pretty good. It's not my fave Portuguese place, but at the same time, they do have a lot of original items which can't be purchased elsewhere. I've got a few examples below, in fact. :)

The only thing *not* going for this place is its prices. In general, one can easily say that Portuguese bakeries, especially in comparison to their Italian or French (I'm not aware of any Spanish bakeries in the GTA, so can't use that -- any suggestions???) counterparts, offer great value for your money. Their breads, buns and sweets are always at affordable if not downright great prices. Not so with Lazar. I don't know if it's because of the "famous" in the name or the fact that they advertise as being Portuguese and Italian (curiously enough, I've been to Italian bakeries and there's not that much in Lazar that would justify the combination... except for the Forza Italia scarves on the walls and an espresso machine ;DD), but don't expect to come to Lazar and pay little. The only thing that you can say is at competitive prices is their breads and buns which you can't charge too much for. Sweets, however, is a risk perhaps not worth taking; the choice is made even more difficult due to the fact that nothing is priced. There are small price lists on top of the racks, listing perhaps 40% of what is actually offered. Nonetheless, you'll definitely pay between $0.50-1.00 (sometimes more) per item in comparison to other Portuguese bakeries, so count on that. Same goes for the stuff behind the glass (whole cakes and slices). On top of this, Lazar has quite a bit of goods sold by weight which, as we've come to learn, is a warning that you will pay more than expected. Accordingly, it's not really a surprise that I've seen many people on my several visits there look pretty shocked at the cash and ask "How much was that again?"

But onto the purchases: first off, we picked a coconut bread ($0.99/per 100g) as it looked quite interesting and we hadn't had something like this before. Erm, I don't think we'll be doing this again. As you may have noticed, this is -- very strangely enough -- one of those by weight items. Bread, by weight? It sounds ridiculous and seeing as we picked the smallest piece, so does $4.80, because that's how much we paid for it. :/ Cutting it open, it was also pretty disappointing to find that it was pretty much what you see, what you get in terms of the coconut: besides what was on top, the rest was just plain sweet bread. Considering the ends were blackened (this is the best angle) to the point of it being inedible, this was definitely not at all worth what you pay for it, especially since it's a surprise. How about weighing the dough beforehand and making one fixed price? Or pricing them individually upon packing them into bags? Bread by weight isn't a great idea, I promise you that. ((PS. If this is something that you might like, I recommend going towards the end of the week to Kraków deli and getting yourself a coconut ring ($3.25, I believe) which is bigger, cheaper, and has layers of coconut folded into the dough -- yummy! ^^))

Going towards the front of the store, they've got a few racks of sweet baked goods ranging from tarts, pies to doughnuts and eclairs. The bigger items, though quite expensive, are priced clearly. Everything else is a guessing game and especially the rack with the eclairs and danishes, you've got to watch out since you'll pay anywhere from $1.25-2.99 for one item. A glazed doughnut is the cheapest, for example, and then it goes up from there: a croissant is $2 and an apple turnover will set you back $3 (in comparison to Caldense or Brazil, where you'll pay around $1.75 for the same thing). Deep-fried goods (like those I bought: a Portuguese doughnut or a cinnamon-sugar butter bread (don't know what it should be called) are at a standard $1.25 each, which is the most reasonable out of everything, although you have to watch out as the small-ish churros also fall into this range and also, that the small doughnuts are just not worth it. I thought they'd be cheaper, so I stocked up once, a long while ago, and they ended up being $1.00/each -- stick to the big sized ones. They're more worth it. Not many bakeries have the doughnuts, so they're a must-try here: thin, bubbly dough coated with cinnamon and sugar, although the thinner ones can get pretty brittle. And eat them only on the day you bought them; after that, they're dead. *nods*

Maybe it's for that reason that my favourite thing here just happens to be the toast. It doesn't look like much and I'm sure anyone can make it if they really wanted to, but this is so good. ;) It's true that upon your first bite of the texas-style toast of the moist, buttery dough, you might feel like fasting for the rest of the day, but it's so tasty. I once got one for the guinea pig (one brother) and he laughed at me for picking it and then he ate it... and he wasn't dissing me anymore! ;D This is like a Portuguese doughnut in taste, but amazingness in texture. Hee hee hee. Tasty isn't too hard to find at Lazar, but tasty and afffordable, *gasps* it might be a miracle! ;)

Overall verdict: Lazar has some tasty stuff if you don't mind paying more for it than other bakeries. There's plenty of stuff to choose from, but much of it simply isn't worth it. The ingredients used in Lazar's baked goods are neither more expensive nor more generous than other places, so you have the impression you're paying for their "famous" reputation more than anything else and that alone mars the image of an otherwise yummy place for baked goods.

Rating: ***