Cordi Italian Bakery

Bakery: Cordi Bakery 
Address: 1891 Rathburn Rd E, Mississauga ON 
Website: n/a 
Style: Italian 
Price: $ 

Cordi is tucked into the corner of the plaza and looks like it's been a mainstay for many a year. Noticing the mention of custard tarts, I assumed at first they were Portuguese when, in reality, they're an Italian bakery (well, yes, there are custard tarts) with many classics (cannoli, rum baba, sfogliatelle, ecc.) as well as with a plentiful smattering of Canadian favourites like pies and several varieties of doughnuts -- which are the highlight. With all individual goods at well under $2, they're also a really well-priced bakery that seems to have many regulars, a lot of whom look to be very fond of the place.

Someone in the household was once complaining about not getting to try more cannoli, so I picked out two for the sampling, one with cheese filling ($1.65) and the other with chocolate ($1.25). They were smaller and the dough thinner and wafer-like (unlike the huge, puffier cannoli of some supermarkets) with those characteristic deep-fried bubbles. As a whole, they were good, but not the greatest either. I have a few more Italian bakeries to try, so maybe I'll take cannoli everywhere and see who will come out on top. There was some disagreement about whether the cheese was better than the chocolate (or vice versa) and ha ha I don't think anyone really agreed in the end. I'm saying cheese. :P

I also took a slice of apple strudel (not sure if I would necessarily call it a strudel, but 'apple cake' will work too; $1.10) which was, in addition to being cheap, was quite tasty. The dough was different; softer and and just not puff pastry, to put it simply. Plenty of apples, a little sponge cake layer on the bottom and dough wrapped... around.  I liked it.

As a concluding remark, Cordi didn't knock my socks off with everything they sell, but those doughnut twists... I'll never get enough of those! A good bakery with plenty of choices and those being pretty yummy choices at that.

Rating: ***1/2