Joe la Croûte

Bakery: Joe la Croûte 
Address: 7024 Avenue Casgrain, Montreal QC 
Website: http://www.joelacroute.com
Style: French
Price: $$ 

With so many fantastic bakery options in and around Jean Talon market, I already go crazy enough without delving into places that still need to be reviewed. Committing myself to this task, I decided to take it one bakery at a time and start with Joe la Croûte. Joe, however, is indeed a proper boulangerie; it has a fairly large -- depending on the day -- selection of artisan breads and that is more or less it. In other words, their specialty isn't sweet baked goods by any means. It's a bit of a shame, since their selection of breads does look good as do some savoury goods that almost look sweet... until you realize there's olives in it, for example. -_- Oh, the pain and frustration of a bread-bakery!

At first glance, I was almost sure they had no sweets at all. Perhaps they had a chocolatine, but beyond that, I was ready to give up until I spotted these maple-nut brioches ($2.80). Rolled up like cinnamon buns but featuring a thick sticky topping and filling of maple syrup and chunks of nuts in a soft, buttery egg dough, this was pretty good. I think the only criticism I have is that, making sure I got the name right, I checked if their website had product information and found the pictured brioche a far cry from the one I had. Where is all that maple topping and generous amounts of nuts dotting the whole thing? O.o Nevertheless, good, but not enough for those with a sweet tooth. :P

Rating: ***