Solero Bakery

Bakery: Solero Mediterranean Bakery
Address: 3029 Dundas W, Toronto ON
Website: www.solerobakery.ca
Style: Serbian, Mediterranean, Eastern European
Price: $

Wow! This really turned into the find of the year in terms of bakeries, and the surprise of the year at that. I really didn't think this would be so good, but I had seen that on blogto.com's visit, they had snapped a picture of poppy seed buns in the oven. For this reason, and for this reason only, I put Solero on my must-visit list and it has since then gone straight to the top of the must-return list. I don't think there is anything remotely bad in this deli/bakery in the Junction (near High Park and Dundas); it's just not possible. Everything is... amazing! And add to that the fact that the prices are just ridiculously low so you can shop to your heart's content! The most expensive purchase happened to be the meat burek ($2.25) which they seem most famous for and, as the mom attests after having eaten it in minutes, is very good; everything else barely went over $1! It's thrilling!

And what's the most thrilling is the... poppy seed buns. *shrieks and starts hyperventilating* They've got two of them for the taking and well, I did indeed take both. The smaller one ($1.25) made of denser dough and rolled a few times though it's so bursting with poppy seed that you can't even see the layers is delicious. The larger one ($1.50) is huge, stuffed with poppy seed and tastes *exactly* like my all-time fave poppy seed buns at What a Bagel Richmond Hill before they started skimping out (though it breaks my heart so much that I don't even want to mention it ;__;), at half the price. It was heavenly. *-* Mmm....

Ahem, besides the poppy seed euphoria, I also got their perfectly flaky and buttery cherry strudel ($1.25 per slice; $4, I believe, for a whole) which also deserves special attention. They've also got apple, which I'm sure would be just as good. The last purchase was a cherry danish ($1.25) braided with flaky dough and encrusted with pistachio, which was... excellent. Everything was excellent and really, I almost get mad at places like these because you start to run out of adjectives to describe just how good (let's stick in a "scrumptious" there, why not) it was. Besides what I bought, they also sell baklava, both drier ones per piece ($1.60) or per kilo behind the glass. Behind the glass, there are also several Serbian cakes, some pies.. in short, everything that probably tastes as good as it looks. Solero, you've become one of my best friends! ;DDDDD

EDIT: I've been back twice and on both occasions, there wasn't a poppy seed baked good to be seen or that many baked goods at all, as a matter of fact. What on earth happened? I was disappointed so much the second time, upon being greeted with an "empty" bakery that I just walked out. :( What happened to the poppy seed buns and strudels??  As of now, I can hardly give this place three stars... so sad!

Rating: ***

Bagel Plus

Bakery: Bagel Plus Bakery Restaurant
Address: 634 Sheppard Av W, North York ON
Website: n/a
Style: Jewish
Price: $$$-$$$$

Bagel Plus was my second stop on my trip along Bathurst. As the name suggests, they indeed do have more than bagels, including your Jewish baking staples such a rugguleh, challa bread, and a few (though not a lot) of poppy seed goods. Everything looks pretty tasty, though the prices are a little over-the-top, especially in comparison to the bunch of bakeries in the immediate area; a chocolate cupcake was $3, loaf cakes $7, fruit buns and danishes $3.25 . Add to that some items are for take-out only, others are priced specially for eating it there. It gets a little confusing and overwhelming!

What wasn't very overwhelming was the poppy seed selection; true, I came a few hours before closing which seems a given that there won't be anything left (??), but I don't think there was anything there to begin with. This is the poppy seed strudel (I could have sworn the price said $8.99, though we paid $6, taxes included O.o) which does, in fact, make the price understandable: this thing is stuffed, loaded, bursting at the seams (do you get it now? ;P) with poppy seed and nothing but poppy seed, raisins and made moist and sticky with extra generous amounts of honey. This monster of a mass is then wrapped with a thin, flaky dough with rock sugar on top.

Whoa, I'm not sure I've ever had so much pure poppy seed in one sitting... *_* If you're going for a drug test or something, I recommend you not eat this beauty beforehand. I'm sure you're going to be tested a hundred times positive for opiates, ha ha ha! :D Ahem, fawning aside, I must actually say -- believe it or not -- that for the amount of dough, there really was too much poppy seed. *gasps in horror* Omg, I know, I know! How can I possibly say such a thing? The ends are excellent, but once in the middle, the poppy seed just oozes out onto your plate (I wanted to turn the slice upright in my photo and it. just. wouldn't work!) and you're stuck with nothing but a mountain in the end and while I do love poppy seed like there's no tomorrow, eating it plain is pushing it. I think it would be a lot better if they actually rolled the strudel instead of just making a flaky shell (in the same way as an Austrian apple strudel), so you got at least a little bite of dough with each mouthful.

Still, with so much commitment to ingredients, I can't scold them too much -- taste-wise, this was delicious!! ;) However, their prices are a bit of a setback for a return trip; I can go north or south and get some equally delicious, wholesome baked goodies for less.

Rating: ***

Hermes Bakery

Bakery: Hermes Bakery
Address: 2885 Bathurst St, Toronto ON
Website: n/a
Style: Jewish
Price: $-$$

Returning again to the Jewish part of Bathurst for more poppy seed discoveries (because, I don't know why, Jewish bakeries seem to do it best; I've been looking for someone to oust the poppy seed kings, but it'll never happen.), I ended up at two places. Here's the first.

Having always gone closer to the Russian businesses (like the heavenly Antosha), we never actually saw Hermes Bakery before. It was only after getting lost/mixing up north and south (please, don't ask; driving in Toronto is a skill that requires much practice..) that I ended up at Hermes, even though I remembered that blogto.com (that's how I had found Malta Bake Shop) had only listed them as baking bread. Pffff, what an insult! The first thing that you notice once you walk into this bakery and kosher deli is the smell. Omg, I never get why all bakeries don't smell like freshly baked baked goods the minute you step through the door; the aroma was amazing! *-* Once you get to the bakery section, tons of breads, buns, cakes, cookies and strudels behind the glass, you realize it's because they seem to be constantly baking, bringing out sheets of delectable treats. Unlike other bakeries, Hermes seems to have more Eastern European-based, yeast baked goods -- blueberry buns, egg bread, etc. -- and the basics of other Jewish bakeries (rugguleh and arrrgh, what on earth are those triangles called? with the poppy seed or prune filling?) weren't to be seen, though this is just a remark, neither good nor bad. I would, however, only say that, a) it would help if things were priced, although my purchase was reasonably priced, b) improve their service. I never consider service when buying; it doesn't really matter to me if I'm treated politely or not, but man, my experience at Hermes was unpleasant. There was one lady serving a woman and so, as there was a line developing behind me, she asked another worker to come and serve the customers. I asked for one poppy seed bun and moved over to the other end of the counter to order some things there, and she just threw the poppy seed bun at me and returned to the back without another word. O_O Okay, so you don't want business?? I considered waiting around, but seeing as the people behind me were looking a little impatient and confused, I grabbed my purchase and paid. So, nothing else from here...

Seriously, it was worth the negative purchasing experience. While it wasn't overstuffed with poppy seed, my poppy seed bun ($1.99) was phenomenal! *______* Not only did it taste like it came straight from the oven (and it probably did), it was baked with butter (another unfortunate rarity) and you could taste it in every bite of that soft, super moist dough and in the crispy bottom, where the butter pooled.. OMG! I'm drooling just thinking about it! I'm really amazed at how good this was, and it really goes to show you (there are several bakeries on my tour that could take a hint) that you don't need have tons of poppy seeds to have a perfect poppy seed bun. And Hermes nailed it; it wasn't the best I've ever had, but it was beautiful! Just... wow! ((how about opening a location closer to me now?? ;_;))

Rating: ***1/2

Georgian Bakery

Bakery: Georgian Bakery
Address: 253 King St, Midland ON
Website: www.georgianbakery.ca
Style: European, North American
Price: $$

Ha ha the second my brother brought in a bag from Georgian Bakery after he had gone on a hiking expedition, I got super excited, since I thought the "Georgian" referred to the country (always on the lookout for ethnic baked goods) ... turns out it referred to Georgian Bay -- and that the closest Georgian bakeries from Toronto is Vancouver, Chicago or Brooklyn. Ouch. There goes that ethnic find... Ahem, so there are no Georgian treats at Georgian Bakery (just so everyone's clear ;D), but there is a hodgepodge of North American favourites like various pies, doughnuts (their website claim they've got 'the best in town'; that no one tried), and tortieres, as well a whole bunch of baked goods that are very, very Eastern European -- my mom was suspecting it might even be a Polish bakery, but their owners aren't... all I do know is someone knows how to make some good poppy seed buns on the premises. ;)

This brother doing a lot better job at purchasing than my youngest one does (well, besides not having any clue how much anything cost!), we ended up with a bit of everything including a whole apple pie, which was alright, though a lot of other places do it better. The filling, in particular, was slightly sour and stuffed with very firm, almost fresh apples and dotted on top with a few red spots which were or might have not been cherries. I know many Polish bakeries make their apple cake in this style, and it's not one I particularly like, so I wasn't too thrilled with this (a tad too much glaze also..).

Similar to this was the small tart which was put in the same bag as a sweet bun and consequently smushed. :/ I thought this was cherry, but it turned out to be.. rhubarb, possibly? I remember seeing bits of stringy fruit or perhaps it was cherry mixed with something else, as the nondescript, mildly tart taste itself didn't point to any one fruit. The shell and the flower with rock sugar on top (which reminded me very much of Dufflet) were both made of shortbread and quite delicious, though I really would have liked more actual fruit inside, whatever it was supposed to be. :P Not bad though!

Two sweet buns (one cherry and the other... (oh, can you possibly guess what it is?) poppy seed -- big surprise!) were also purchased. The poppy seed one in particular was actually surprisingly good; I say surprisingly, because both sweet buns, even ~two hours after purchase, were clearly not freshly baked. I'm not sure whether they were baked at night or the day before, but they were already growing hard and stale, especially where there was no filling. The cherry was especially... past the pinnacle of freshness. The morning after, the dry bread feeling detracted from the taste, though it was actually good: the dough light and airy with just poppy seeds stuffed in the middle and topped with crumble and icing. Once you got in the middle where the icing and poppy seed kept it moist, mmmmm.... There wasn't a lot of poppy seed, but you didn't need all that much more. It was excellent... if it were a little more fresh!

Overall, there were a few small things needing improvement and I would have LOVED for the yeast goods to be fresher (there are some baked goods that can be baked in advance while others cannot sit around for long), but taste-wise, Georgian Bakery was very good and I'd probably return for those poppy seed buns if in the area... and perhaps try their doughnuts as well. ;)

Rating: **1/2

Paramount Fine Foods

Bakery: Paramount Fine Foods
Address: 1290 Crestlawn Drive, Mississauga ON
Website: http://www.paramountbutchershop.com
Style: Lebanese, Middle Eastern
Price: $$$

There's a quirky story about this place. While on holiday, I received a comment with many helpful bakery suggestions in Mississauga and one of them was Paramount Fine Foods for their baklava. I came back home two weeks after that, and as I was eating dinner following my flight, my youngest brother was saying how the day before they had gone to... Paramount Fine Foods for lunch and had brought back a box of baklava (which I got a chance to photograph before he ate it all). I couldn't believe my luck -- what are the chances? So, I got to review it without actually going there or actually needing to listen to my very helpful visitor's advice! :P

Paramount Fine Foods is actually a two-part store and primarily a butcher shop. In fact, they were in the newspaper awhile back discussing the butcher shop part, which is how I had heard about it, but there's also a deli as well as a hot food area serving your middle eastern faves (the brother would like to say their shawarma is excellent...) and a bakery, also with your middle eastern faves: baklava! Like Baklawa King, baklava are sold by weight and cost $1 more per kg. than the former. Therefore, at $26/kg, they're not cheap, but are certainly good. The biggest hit, however, was eaten before I had arrived; there are apparently large honey treats with cream/cheese filling. The brother has a hard time describing them for me; all he claims is that they were amazing. The traditional baklava (the bottom two on the photo) is also amazing: soaked and wet with honey (a good thing) and loaded with nuts. On the other hand, the other items (top two) weren't as good and it's recommended you stick to the traditional rolled ones... or the cheese... things. :P

As for which Lebanese pastries are better? After a lot of deliberation, the brother couldn't give a definitive answer: they're both really good, but it's too hard to say which one is the best. So there you go. -___-

Rating: ***

Overcomers Missionary Church Bake Sale

Bakery: Overcomers Missionary Church Bake Sale
Address: 1504 Queen St W, Toronto ON
Website: n/a
Style: Guyanese, Caribbean
Price: $

I actually got so excited about this that I had to introduce a new tag to my site for all those cakes that can be bought, but not from bakeries or from any stories for that matter: festival tents, bake sales, you-name-it. It's those one-time jewels that you won't find anywhere else; after all, sometimes nothing beats home baking! And, of course, it also gives you a chance to try something that might be a tad too specific to have its own bakery. Here's my example!

While walking along Queen St W in Parkdale (for Tibetan food *-*), a woman stopped us on the street and invited us inside to her church's bake sale. Now, how could I possibly resist an opportunity like that!?! ... And I don't think the woman expected that of all the people walking by she would nab Mimi and her Cake Tour!! ;DDD We stepped inside to the teeny-tiny church where there was a table set up with around 10 different baked goods, all plastic-wrapped and selling for $1 each, with the exception of the banana cake. And everything was really interesting, with 90% of sweets containing coconut. Going all out, I went for the ones with the specific names, if only for the reason that I could go back and see where all these coconut goodies originated from. Imagine my surprise and excitement (okay, I'm probably the only one to get excited at such an opportunity, I'm so pathetic!) that I typed the names in and discovered I was now sampling... Guyanese baked goods! *shrieks* How interesting is that! ((and this marked my first Caribbean discovery too!!))

The first purchase was "sugar cake" ($1), which can also be known as "coconut ice"; this is more a combination of both names, since, in fact, it's pretty much very coarsely chopped coconut stuck together with sugar and water. It's rock hard, but once you break off a piece, it gets really chewy. My mom was a big fan and I also quite liked it during the first few bites. The texture is weird, but not in a bad way. After a few 'chews', however, my teeth were starting to hurt from the sweetness, my jaw from the chewiness and my gums from the sharp edges; you can't eat too much of it, that's for sure, but just a bit is quite pleasant.

The second purchase was "salara" cake, which is another Guyanese specialty, although I think it was Trinidad also had a version of it. The Guyanese one, however, is rolled up. ((yes, I'm extremely proud of myself!)) This was my favourite. It's a simple yeast dough rolled with a coconut mass; the pinkness comes from food colouring. Unlike the sugar cake, this one was actually not very sweet, but good. When hearing that they had probably three different 'coconut buns', the youngest brother got mad at me for not buying one for him, so maybe next time. ^^

A great, wholly new find for me! Even after suffering some mouth injuries with that sugar cake, it was definitely worth accepting the invitation inside. So, thank you very much, ladies of the Overcomers Missionary Church and maybe I'll be in the area for your next bake sale! ;)

Rating: **

Stockmann [Mimi's World Tour]

 Bakery: Stockmann
Address: Aleksanterinkatu 52, Helsinki
Website: https://stockmann.com
Style: Finnish
Price: $$

Stockmann is without a doubt *the* Finnish department store and their head location on Aleksanterinkatu can't be missed. It's Scandinavia's biggest department store, after all (see what kind of useless trivia I can churn out ;D). But I'm not here to talk about the department store, since that doesn't concern me all that much. Instead, bypass all those designer goods and fragrance counters and head directly to the basement, where there's not only the Stockmann grocery store, but an impressive in-house bakery serving up dozens of mostly baked goods, though there are some pastries behind the glass too, if I'm not mistaken. However, I'm so into the baked goods that the rest doesn't matter to me. :P

Nonetheless, I think one of the minuses of Stockmann's bakery is that a majority of goods -- all self-serve products -- are sold by weight, including doughnuts, cinnamon buns, fruit danishes, etc. And everyone knows what that means: the chances of it being overpriced are very big. Thankfully, the scale is also self-serve, so if you don't like the price printed, you can just take your bag, discreetly deposit your item back into the bin and carry on. I didn't do that myself, but it's been done while I was on the premises. XD But yes, I did indeed, even after the weigh-in, end up with sweets purchases~!

On my first trip to Stockmann (and to Finland ^^) I ended up with this blueberry bun which had quite a bit of blueberry in it, though it was more jam-like than real fruit, which would have been better, and a lot of crumble on top. In my opinion, it certainly wasn't worth it, as anything with fruit is priced considerably higher than other baked goods.

The more recent time, I got myself a cinnamon bun (1,70 euro), both because I figured it would be cheaper (it was) and because I was curious how it would taste. This really didn't disappoint: super fresh, soft dough with just that perfect combination of buttery cinnamon filling, cardamom and rock sugar on top. Mmmm.... I had it as my uh, "lunch" right outside the department store and it was just so good. Nothing beats freshly made, Scandinavian cinnamon buns! *-* And this was without a doubt the best I had tasted in the land of the midnight sun, despite having followed my travel guidebook's advice to try it elsewhere (a future post), where it's apparently the best. Nope, Stockmann may be a bit of a ripoff with the prices (though they did have cinnamon buns which you could order yourself and which were sold per item, but were more expensive) and they wouldn't necessarily be considered first and foremost a culinary destination, but their bakery is still worth visiting... if for the sole reason that you can't afford anything else (anymore) in the iconic department store. ;DDD

Rating: ***

Malta's Finest Pastries

Bakery: Malta's Finest Pastries
Address: 4138 Dundas St W, Toronto ON
Website: n/a
Style: Maltese
Price: $

West past Jane and in a small plaza that's easy to overlook is the other Maltese pastry shop. This one seemed to be a lot more for people in the know, since nothing was labelled and really, there wasn't that much selection, though the entire store smelled of savoury pastizzi (perhaps they're more known for the savoury than the sweet, not sure??). In terms of sweets, there literally were two options for sale: the molasses ring (qaghaq tal-ghasel) which I bought at Malta Bake Shop and date-filled imqaret ($1.50/each).

Seeing as I bought the former already (on the same day, otherwise I would have taken them again ^^), I thought I'd settle for the latter, although I had bought those too. However, if you'd like a different experience -- or a healthier one -- than the deep fried treats from the above place, the ones here are bigger with a lot more spiced date filling and the dough is thin and baked instead of deep friend. Smell-wise, I found that you almost expected these things to be savoury, and even when eating it, it wasn't very sweet at all, but very fruity (well, very date-y, but that might be a given ;D) with the dough having picked up a lot of that clove and allspice flavour; I instantly thought of the box of Egyptian date roll cookies (a way better and tastier version of the fig newton) I have in the cupboard. It was tasty, but, in my opinion, couldn't compete with the MBS... still, not bad, not bad at all! :)

Rating: ***

Malta Bake Shop

Bakery: Malta Bake Shop
Address: 3256 Dundas St W, Toronto ON
Website: n/a
Style: Maltese
Price: $

Looking for new locations in Toronto to go cake touring, I made it to Dundas St between Runnymede and High Park and well, it was one of the most successful Cake Tour trips I've made, certainly in Toronto... and certainly the most satisfying! Ethnic bakeries get me VERY excited and what could be more exciting than not only one Maltese bakery, but two.. and Serbian poppy seed heaven at that. Wow, my mind is still reeling! *-*

Honestly, I don't think I ever imagined that I'd be able to find something so... obscure as a Maltese pastry shop and I wasn't really expecting anything thrilling either, perhaps very similar to Italian (which isn't one of my fave baked good countries, to be honest with you), but Maltese stuff, besides the cookies or other more universal treats, was extremely interesting: the majority have strange (for the linguist in me, at any rate), almost Arabic sounding names (I had to research the names on Wikipedia, because there is no way I'd remember them all ;D) and middle eastern-influenced ingredients like dates, almonds and more savoury spices such as allspice and cloves.

And the amazing things about Malta Bake Shop in particular are that, 1) every pastry has an explanation with what's in it (very helpful), 2) the prices are amazing, 3) you have the choice between a smaller pastry ($1.50) and a larger version ($2), 4) it's sooooo good! ;)

So, let's get started in order of how I ate these delectable goodies. First of all, I got two imqaret ($0.70/each): deep fried pieces of dough stuffed with dates and very aromatic spices (the most obvious being allspice). I really think this was my first reason for super excitement. These were so delicious and almost too small (then again, you shouldn't have too many as dates and deep fried is not the most lo-cal combo; there is a healthier version in the other Maltese pastry shop I went to...); the dough was both crunchy and soft, the dates just so good. Mmmm....

Another big discovery was the qaghaq tal-ghasel ($1.50; a large one is available for $2), a pretty unassuming ring of slightly hard dough baked in with, as the sign said, molasses. The description didn't sound all that good; I thought it would be the consistency of caramel, but it ended up being more of a moist, super chewy spice cake with, of course, the taste of molasses and gingerbread spices. If I thought the imqaret were my instant faves, this made me rethink that. ;D If it's not poppy seed, I can be such a sucker for gingerbread-spiced goods... <3 <3

Lastly was the trizzi (this I remembered... and could pronounce ;)))! -- $1.50 for this small version, $2 for large) , a chewy chocolate-cherry-almond cake wrapped in hard dough and topped with some crumble. Admittedly, I ate this three days later because I had so much to sample, so it wasn't too fresh, but it hadn't gone stale either. Ha ha I had a hard time actually trying to distinguish all three main ingredients in the brown mass (unless the almond was actually in the crumble O.o), but it was tasty nonetheless, though perhaps a tad too doughy. To be sure, I preferred the other two better, but I still can't say anything bad about this either; there is a non-chocolate option (strizzi) as well.

But hmm, after all that ranting and raving, do you really need to know the rating? And I all I know is that... I need to go back to this place, heh heh heh! :P

Rating: ****

Iana Bakery [RIP]

Bakery: Iana Bakery
Address: 4665 Central Parkway E., Mississauga ON
Website: http://www.ianabakery.com/
Style: Italian, Portuguese, North American
Price: $-$$

This might be the one time that Google advertising has worked, though I must admit that a few days ago I compiled a list of all the ~20 Mississauga-area bakeries (included are some kind suggestions :)) I still need to review and remembered that there was some sort of Portuguese bakery on the same place as Carpati Romanian deli (future post XD). Still, while researching the address of Truscott Italian Bakery, these guys popped up in the sidebar, claiming they were the home of Mississauga's best cakes and that they also sold baked fresh daily croissants, danishes and baked goods. I'm not sure if the first claim is true, as I didn't have a cake and am not a fan of the wedding cake-style cakes they're famous for, but the second one certainly wasn't in that I went there and found pretty much an empty bakery. A few buns, two loaves of bread and empty shelves where I assume the croissants and danishes should be. Although I didn't leave empty-handed, the selection was quite small and it was really difficult to pick something out from what was left behind/baked that day; moreover, there wasn't anything Portuguese or not a lot Italian goodies besides some cake slices and canoli behind the glass along with cupcakes and sugar cookies. :/

In the baked goods, I really took one of the two things that remained: a bun ($1.80) filled with a heavy, dark mass which made me at once think of... poppy seed!! Of course, my common sense came in then and told me that surely Portuguese/Italian baked goods don't use poppy seed, so I thought it would be some fruity mass... anything than what it was: a hard, dense brownie-like dough wrapped with a more crusty, cookie-like white dough, then dusted with vanilla. It definitely wasn't what I was expecting and so I was pretty disappointed. The concept, in my opinion wasn't a great one, and I really don't know what it was supposed to be. Definitely not worth it and the least favourite of my purchases.

Besides this, I caved and took some cookies ($23.99/kg; this plate cost $2.40). I don't really go to bakeries for cookies, to be quite honest with you. I bake some pretty decent ones myself and don't eat them all that often, so I've never really seen the point to go and get plain sugar cookies. Instead, I picked out ones that looked more unique: "spice" cookies, one chocolate jam cookie, one vanilla jam cookie, and one chocolate cookie. There wasn't that much taste difference between them and even the chocolate ones were almost identical to the vanilla. The best was by far the chocolate one with jam in between the two layers. It was alright, though not enough jam. Again, maybe to eat with some strong coffee or to give to kids, they're alright, but alone, they also didn't wow me.

Lastly, I took the white chocolate rum ball ($0.80) which might just prove that this place's specialty is indeed their cakes. Like I said, I'm not really a fan of cakes; give me some fresh baked goods and I'll be a happy girl, but this was the best by a long shot and was pretty good. One of my brothers always takes rum balls, but the chocolate variety and they're just these hunks of chocolate, so here, you had this crumbly vanilla cake dough with this nuttiness to it inside. The top was dry-ish, but towards the bottom, the dough was pretty moist and at the end, you had this pleasant.. bite from the rum. Eat that with the delicious white chocolate glaze, this actually proved to be the hit, although I was least eager to try it. Not bad, indeed.

In the end, I guess I could say definitely stick to the cakes/pastries behind the glass (or, ahem, go a few doors down to Carpati!!), since nothing else really lived up to my expectations. So many bakeries sell cookies, whether Italian or otherwise, so I'm convinced there are better places for that. That rum ball, though... I think that really raised the rating here. (and that's not the rum talking either ;))))

Rating: **

Golden Grain Bakery

Bakery: Golden Grain
Address: 138-A Hwy. 8, Stoney Creek, ON
Website: n/a
Style: Serbian/Croatian
Price: $$-$$$

While at Royal Meats (Burnhamthorpe and Cawthra, Mississauga), I thought I might as well make myself useful and see if this predominantly Serbian deli and meat shop with some Croatian/Bulgarian goods as well had any sort of sweets, seeing as Serbian/Croatian/anything in the region isn't the easiest thing to find in terms of baked goods AND I've never had anything Serbian before, and you know how I love trying ethnic baking. *-* Lo and behold, they had refrigerated boxes and little cake squares. Making a note of the name, I let my brother know to visit if in the Stoney Creek area and you wouldn't believe where he was planning on going hiking the next day. I love it when that happens. ;)

So, despite them having the Mediterranean staple, baklava, my brother picked out a whole bunch of these dainty little pastries, showcasing their entire variety (there isn't a lot) and including four slices of those aforementioned cake squares ("žarbo", by name). As the goodies are priced per weight, we ended up with a box of nine, I believe, for around $5. Of this set, there was the žarbo, which seems to be a layer cake made of moist sponge cake and banana mush, topped off with a thin layer of chocolate. I really think the best way to picture is a chocolate banana shortcake.

The ball farthest back in the picture was a 'fig cake', which was shaped roughly like a fig with a thin layer of dough and stuffed with a, you guessed it, figgy filling. Brother #1 really loved this and jumped at the chance to eat the second piece before Brother #2 found out! The chocolate triangle was a thin wafer wrapped around a filling of chocolate and nuts. Again, brother #1 couldn't seem to get his hands off of this one.

The two white circles were a little similar to the chocolate triangle in that they were surrounded by a thin wafer and filled with a creamy, banana filling. Unluckily, I actually ended up selecting the two things with banana and, not being a fan of bananas in baking, didn't like it so much... and as much as the brother who not only wants to return but wants to stock up on more sweets and try the baklava too. Me, I think I might stay away from the bananas next time (I mean, really, who knew? I wouldn't expect so much bananas). XDDDDD

Rating: **1/2