The BIG Cannoli

Bakery: The BIG Cannoli
Address: #11 28 Roytec Rd, Woodbridge ON
Website: http://bigcannoli.ca/
Style: Italian 
Price: $$ 

"BIG-ger" doesn't necessarily mean better. It's a saying that holds true in many situations and it was, in fact, the first thought that came into my head when I tried the first of three Woodbridge bakeries (all Italian, naturalmente) that my brother brought back for us after some sort of professional event. Certainly, the pastries were bigger, a lot bigger than not only the samples I received from two other bakeries, but the biggest Italian pastries I've seen. They were on the verge of being more than big; they were huge! However, in the battle of the bakeries, size doesn't matter all that much and it was the case here.

The BIG Cannoli is situated in the industrial corner of Woodbridge, a couple hundred metres from the generally more popular and more renowned Sweet Boutique (future post). Coming there on a (not that early) Saturday morning, the brother found the pastry shop and cafe looking more abandoned than anything else with -- get this -- not a single cannolo in sight! Seeing that he can be a little bit of an idiot, I was very skeptical, but after asking him about a dozen times, I got the same response: there were no cannoli! So, despite the six variations featured on one of their banner photo, the great cannolo challenge with all three bakeries competing did not take place as the most natural place to try cannoli didn't have any. Yes, it was pretty disappointing.

Instead, the brother got two of three pastries that *were* there: one eclair and a "rum" baba ($2.50/each) These were, as mentioned above, pretty big, especially in comparison to your standard Italian pastries. The baba, in particular, was gigantic, although I wasn't too pleased with it. For one, it was simply too big: too much custard, too much (not too moist) sponge cake and well, not enough alcohol. Actually, if there was any (I doubt it; I'm excellent at detecting such things ;D), it was so little that it couldn't be noticed. Instead, the cake was soaked in a sort of sugar water, so biting into the cake got you a gush of sweet. It certainly wasn't the experience I was anticipating.

Luckily, the equally large eclair was better than the baba, with good dough and pretty tasty, very generously loaded cream filling. One brother remarked that he particularly liked the chocolate topping. Although there was nothing overly amazing about it, it was fairly good and redeemed the place a little bit.

Overall, I'm still a little surprised that The Cannoli's specialty was nowhere to be found (and I really don't think that they're that good that people line up at the door and snatch them all up at 8:00am or something O.o); however, as the few non-cannolo items weren't particularly delicious, I'd say stick to a few of the other Italian bakeries in the immediate area. Not a BIG disappointment, but a moderately sized one.

Rating: **