Scotian Isle Bakery

Bakery: Scotian Isle Bakery 
Address: 972 Hamilton Rd #13, London ON 
Website: http://scotianisle.ca/
Style: Canadian
Price: $$ 

It's pretty easy to stumble upon "ethnic" bakeries serving baked goods from other countries, especially when it comes to larger cities, but unfortunately, it doesn't happen often that I come across a bakery specializing in baking from another... province(!). For this reason, I was pretty excited to give Scotian Isle a try.

Scotian Isle is, as the name somewhat indicates (not to mention the Cape Breton tartan on their website), a Nova Scotian bakery. That being said, there isn't that much difference besides the omnipresence of oatcakes and perhaps the raisin pie. Besides that, expect some homestyle, traditional Canadian bakery fare like butter tarts, pies, and cookies.

From this array, two cake slices were chosen: the satin chocolate cake and some sort of coconut macaroon cake. The chocolate cake was rich, velvety and dark with a similarly dark chocolate ganache topping. Certainly the more decadent of the two, this was perhaps more like a brownie in texture and look than a typical chocolate cake.

The coconut macaroon cake was probably more interesting and my personal favourite. Chewy, shredded coconut with a hint of caramel and chocolate -- tasty!

Rating: ***

Village Harvest [RIP]

Bakery: Village Harvest Bakery
Address: 145 Wortley Rd, London ON 
Website: http://www.villageharvestbakery.com/
Style: Canadian
Price: $$ 

Expanding the London tab with three more bakeries! Village Harvest is a simple bakery located in the small, pretty quaint commercial area along Wortley Rd. One of two bakeries, in fact. The selection is fairly home-style, reminiscent of small-town or well-established bakeries anywhere, with a focus on cookies, squares, and pies. There isn't too much of anything available, but the classics were there.

Among which was the date square... perhaps it would be more accurate to call it a date slab? This looked like an entire quarter of the pan, with corner intact. Without a doubt, this was a generous portion! Biting into this, my first observation was that it was pretty doughy, with a dense, flavourful thick bottom and similarly sized crumble topping. In between, a chewy, not-too sweet date filling. I personally thought that the top needed a little more variation, maybe a little less dough on the bottom would have also helped? My favourite date squares are the ones that have almost a granola topping, with chunky oats. This one, though pretty good, needed a little more texture.

Rating: **1/2

Matcha

Bakery: Matcha Tea & Dessert
Address: 4076 Spadina Avenue, Toronto ON
Website: http://matchateadessert.ca/
Style: Japanese, Taiwanese
Price: $$$ 

At long last I have some cake tours to do! After a few weeks' long dry spell offering me no new bakeries to try, I landed exactly five new spots in one day -- imagine that! Oh, it's so wonderful to be able to update my little site and make my way to that hopefully-not-too elusive 150 Canadian bakeries!

Anyways, is it just me or did a whole bunch of new businesses just suddenly pop up on Spadina? I mean, it couldn't have happened all at once, but the last time I was there, it gave me the impression of it having come overnight. Where did they all come from? Most cater to the new generation of Chinese; they're chicer, more appealing than what gritty Chinatown is known for and offer more unique food options. Matcha is one such business (they share the space with a noodle bar). The name is, though not too creative, self-explanatory, though the mishmash of Japanese and Taiwanese tea comes as more of a surprise: matcha-based tea drinks along with Japanese-style desserts like cream puffs, matcha red bean Swiss rolls, molten matcha cakes, etc. A bit of standard fare and a few items that you won't find anywhere else.

 One item is the matcha cream puff ($3.99). At over $4 with tax, it has a pretty steep price tag, especially considering Japanese matcha chain Tsujiri a few blocks away sells by far the best matcha cream puffs imaginable at a fraction of the cost. In some ways, I went into this one a bit skeptical. More or less fist-sized, this has a crumble texture on top with a dusting of green tea powder. Inside, it's generously filled with intense green cream. And that cream is pretty good. The one thing they have over Tsujiri is that, whereas the latter features a mix of plain and matcha whipped cream, Matcha has pure matcha cream and that's a delicious, beautiful thing. Super flavourful, excellent texture for both the puff dough and dense filling, the only minus was that I found was that the matcha was kind of bitter and didn't have the smooth and sweet flavour I've tried elsewhere.

It's a bit of a splurge, but Matcha is tasty and a nice, welcome addition to the "new Chinatown".

Rating: ***