Ana Meilleure Cuisine

Bakery: Ana Meilleure Cuisine 
Address: 3839 Boulevard Saint-Laurent, Montreal QC
Website: n/a 
Style: Eastern European, Croatian 
Price: $$$ 

All good things must come to an end, and in this case, it's my 15-stop (with a few return visits thrown in there for fun ^^) bakery tour of Montreal, my most ambitious one of the city to date! Great job, Mimi! I was returning with my hands laden with bags of baked goods from another day of Cake Tours when I was walking by the window of this bakery/deli and spotted... yes, indeed, there they were: poppy seed buns (and was promptly waved at by the woman behind the counter to get inside). Seeing as it was my last day, I thought I could spare a few dollars and grab a bun. And in I went for a slightly bizarre experience that was just as head-scratching as the name of the business.

Ana's has a wonderful array of baked goods displayed in the window, ranging from poppy seed buns, chocolate buns, to flaky turnovers and other treats that you'll find at many "European" bakeries. Inside, it's a bit apparent that the bakery is only limited to the window, as the rest of the space is devoted to imported products from the Balkan countries and hot sandwiches. Upon ordering my poppy seed bun, I was greeted with the price: a pretty staggering $5 that seemed to me strangely arbitrary. I don't know why I almost feel like a return trip will get me another price, and at nearly 600 bakeries I can't say I've ever had that impression before. O.o This turned into a slightly surreal conversation during which my mind was still reeling at the price of the bun.

 Needless to say, with the insistence that the poppy seed bun should be heated prior to eating, I went away feeling a little ripped off and convinced that the necessary warming up was because the bun wasn't fresh. This, thankfully, wasn't the case: A fresh bun loaded with poppy seeds that were rolled with a semi-soft, fairly dense dough. The top was a little unexciting, but overall it was quite a good bun: not the best, very far from the worst, but not exactly worth the price.

Rating: ***