Athen's Pastries

Bakery: Athen's Pastries
Address: 509 Danforth Av, Toronto ON 
Website: n/a 
Style: Greek 
Price: $$-$$$ 

Athen's Pastries, the second Greek bakery (of two) in Greek Town, should be more appropriately called Athen's Pasties, seeing as their specialties are more savoury filo treats. Well, you might even go further and just call it a cafe, since their selection of pasties/pastries isn't that big, but at least they know what they're good at and stick to it. There's probably six different things on the Athen's menu, almost all priced at $3.40 and when I went there, there were only five, only two of which would qualify for the Cake Tour. I mean, yes, I know a couple of guys who would be more than happy to go around and sample meat-stuffed baked goods, but it's not happening here. ;P

Anyways, it's without a doubt that their savoury is what gets them the business, since everyone seems to be going exclusively for their meat pies. There were also spanakopita (spinach-stuffed pasties) and another with cheese. ... But, again, I'm not dealing with that.

The two sweet items were the following: there was the custard pie (filo pastry with a thick layer of custard and slathered, pretty much dripping in honey) and loukoumades, Greek doughnuts. We were supposed to pick up baklava on our trip to Greektown (I was actually there after having read an online review of a nearby Turkish bakery... and found it was shut down, so there went that idea -_-) and having sworn there was one other place that sold it besides Athena, we ended up here only to find that they didn't. Settling on the second favourite, we got those small deep fried balls of dough soaked in honey and sprinkled with cinnamon. ($3.00/dozen) Still a little crunchy on the outside and just soft and bursting with honey on the inside, these delectable little doughnuts were a huge hit with everyone. I'm actually not a fan of honey (hence all baklava goes to the brothers) and only tried one of these reluctantly... and ended up really enjoying them. Man, it's such a shame they don't have more sweets here! :(

Rating: ***