Astoria Bakery

Bakery: Astoria Bakery
Address: 3171 Lenworth Dr, Mississauga ON (sold at Starsky and Euromax)
Website: n/a
Style: Polish, Eastern European
Price: $$$

Astoria is yet another commercial bakery operating out of an industrial building in east Mississauga. As far as I know, you can't buy anything at their headquarters, but their stuff can be purchased at various Polish delis, specifically at Starsky and Karpaty/Euromax. They seem to make only slab cakes in the standard varieties: apple cakes, gingerbreads and a few types of cheesecake.

Two weeks ago, Starsky had a flyer special on their 'Smetannikov' (I really tried with my photo this time, btw ;)) cake which makes me doubt my previous assumption that they were Polish. Perhaps they're Ukrainian or Russian? Or Poles just making a Russian cake? *shrugs* Anyways, their Smetannikov was on special ($5.99/lb) and I thought it the perfect opportunity to give it and the bakery a try. Unfortunately, perhaps Starsky was not the greatest or fairest place to taste it, since, even though it was the only cake on sale, they had only a small piece (equal to maybe 1 1/2-2 slices) which still ended up costing $5.00 and that small piece was *old*. At regular price, it would have cost nearly $7.00 which seems almost ridiculous given the size and how stale it was. Seriously, there was a crust on two corners and the dough had that 'too long in the fridge' flavour to it. x__x This thing should have been in the reduced section. At the very least, Starsky should have cut away the stalest edges so you're not buying old cake. Was not very impressed. :/

Sadly, I think I can say pretty much the same thing about the taste: it was a rich, heavy cake made up of layers of chocolate cake, thick cream, a few cherries stuck in here and there, and topped with a thick, gooey dark chocolate glaze. First of all, I'm not sure how other smetannikovs taste (as I've seen other bakeries do them and am curious if it's a standard recipe), but I found the name slightly deceiving ("smetana" = sour cream in Russian; in Polish "śmietana" = cream.) as all you could really taste was the chocolate dough and glaze. The hint of cherries reminded me more of Black Forest cake than anything cream-based. Not what I was expecting.

In the end, I pretty much found out what I already knew: when you want an amazing, multi-layer cake, it is so worth the drive to Richmond Hill. ^^;; Still, I can't say I was pleased at all with the whole experience (especially the selling ancient cake part) and I know I'd give this place higher if the cake was fresh, but man, as it was, I can't recommend it to anyone. :/

Rating: *1/2

Bakery Nakamura

Bakery: Bakery Nakamura
Address: 3160 Steeles Ave E, Markham ON  (inside J-Town)
Website: http://bakerynakamura.com/
Style: Japanese, European
Price: $$-$$$

You can't believe how long I've been wanting to come to this place and review it. A few years ago, I regularly travelled across the GTA to come to Pacific Mall and occasionally stopped into J-town, though I don't remember if I ever got anything from the bakery, even if I always, always wanted to. In the summer, I was planning the somewhat-trip just to J-Town, but things came up and it never happened. So, finally, my mom promised me and my brother a joint birthday lunch at Hunan Garden (*___*) and I just *had* to finally get my butt over to Bakery Nakamura!!

Nakamura is was, if not the only, one of the only Japanese bakeries in the GTA and this alone warrants a visit. Expect to pay more for your goodies at this place -- especially in comparison to nearby Asian bakeries -- that prides itself (and a lot at that) on its pure, additive-free and filtered water baked goods, but in the end, I think that even the simplest thing won't disappoint you and you'll realize it's worth it... though I was a little too poor this time around to go all out and get some cakes. :( The bakery is split up into two sections: the glass case featuring their totally gorgeous and delicious-looking cakes and pastries, the majority of which are French-inspired: buttery croissants and danishes, flaky tarts, and pretty cakes, both European-style and with more Japanese flavours like green tea and a very tasty-looking cheesecake. Cakes are around $30 and a slice is more or less $4.. and we were in the area to pick up a cake elsewhere, so it just didn't happen.

... Man, I would love to find a gift certificate to J-Town on the floor somewhere -- I'd spend it all in the bakery... though that might be hard with all the yummy hot food in the area. (PS. I wouldn't mind receiving one either; the holiday season is just around the corner... message me, I'll give you my contact info ;DDDDDD [please don't take what I say seriously; I'm a little silly like that])

Ahem, back to the review now! It's pretty hard to tear yourself away, but there is a baked goods area with only baked daily goodies: plain bread, savoury filled buns, and sweet buns stuffed with red bean, melon, or chocolate. Seeing as these are all around $2, they're nice and affordable. Even for me. :P So I ended up with two items this time around...

The brother was with me at the time and he seemed a little disappointed that there wasn't more signature, or rather traditional Japanese baked goods (he's not a big sweet bun fan), but the majority being... European-inspired. At first, he seemed a little reluctant to get anything at all and settled on the doughnut ($2.00): a big ball of deep-fried dough filled with red bean. He wasn't as pumped for the sampling as I was, but wow, you should have seen his face when he bit into this thing! XD What were his first words? "Five out of five!" (I don't think he knows I rank things out of four, but well, okay) The rest of the doughnut was eaten amidst mmm's and oooh's and, being told afterwards that he didn't seem that excited at the time of purchase, he replied, "But I never thought Japanese baking could be that good!"

Alright. Not being a fan of red bean myself, I had a hard time choosing between the turtle and the bear (both $2.25 each)... I'm not sure why. This little guy is irresistible! The amazing thing is that the other bears actually had smiley faces; this was the only sad one. Amazing!!!!! He's so in contention for the cutest piece of dough award (I thought T&T had nabbed it with the Happy Pigs, but not sure now..) with that gigantic, not very bear-like nose, the mismatched chocolate chip eyes and that sad, "don't eat me" expression on his face. You almost feel bad biting into that lovable little face. ;__; But, well, it had to be done! Super soft dough and filled with homemade, quality chocolate in between a mousse and a cream. I don't normally like chocolate, but this was yummy!!!!!!

Next time, though, I need to go back for the cakes and see if they live up to the amazingness! Though, if my kitschy website is enough indication of my general cheesiness, you already know that I don't think I'll ever be able to pass up animal buns! :P

Rating: ***1/2

Cafe Konditori Copenhagen [Mimi's World Tour] [RIP]

Bakery: Cafe Konditori Copenhagen 
Address: Grensásvegur 26, Reykjavik 
Website: http://www.konditori.is 
Style: Icelandic, Danish, Scandinavian
Price: $-$$ 

[It took me one year -- well, that's the last time I was in Reykjavik --  to find out that Copenhagen is no longer, but the website exists and gives me a bakery in Gardabaer) There seems to be a new bakery in its place, but that will have to wait until next year. I'm leaving Iceland tomorrow. ;___; Goodbye, Copenhagen! EDIT: the location is now empty... or at least there is no longer any sort of bakery there] 

Uh-oh, it's been ages since my last World Tour and I haven't even gotten to the places I visited in Tallinn (the third and final leg of my summer trip 2012 ^^)! So, I thought it's about time to stick in my last one from good old... Reykjavik (no, I have yet to visit Copenhagen ^^;;)! 
  
I'd seriously been looking forward to this place after having read about it a year before in my tour book about it being a 'heaven for pastry-lovers' or something like this, but didn't have the time for it. So, this year I made sure I got to this place. Actually, as pathetic as it sounds, my tour book (it was obviously out-dated) mentioned that Copenhagen had an second location in Kringlan (the big shopping mall) so that was probably the first reason I went to see it. .__.;; Finding nothing and remembering seeing the original location from the bus, I decided to just walk the few blocks... all for the sake of a little piece of Copenhagen. :) 

Well, either I came at a bad time (though I'm not sure how bad late on a weekday morning is) or they've gone downhill since this tourbook review, but I found the place almost empty. The baked goods section is fairly large, but about half of that had absolutely nothing in it. A lot of the staples in other bakeries (Icelandic poppy seed buns? ;)) just weren't there and I had a bit of difficulty picking something sweet (the breads seem to be more popular than the sweet goods... and of course, I had myself another cheese bun (~300kr) to complete the cheese bun tour  ;D) 

Finally, I caved and just asked the worker (as a rule, I don't like revealing I don't speak enough of a language when shopping, so I try to get by, but asking requires the use of English XD) if I could buy half of one of their strudels (whole, they cost 600kr). There was one cut in half already and I would have taken that one, but asking which one I wanted, I selected this one, which had 'apple' as part of its very long name (I paid 330kr for it) and which looked neat: a typical Danish strudel dough (I know from Hansen's amazing pastry shop) with an apple filling practically smothered in cinnamon and topped with slivered almonds and an alternating pattern of white and chocolate icing. 
 
I say 'practically smothered' because, honestly, if I hadn't recognized the word for apple in the name, I could never have said there was any apple in it; that's how loaded with cinnamon it was (you can maybe see it in the photo: see those whole filled with brown stuff? That's the 'apples'! The first few bites, it was alright, but then it just got too intense. It was gooey like apple sauce.. that doesn't sound so appetizing, but the texture was so good: both soft and a few pieces of apples, but then it was cinnamon overload. The dough itself was a little too soggy as well (I swear, I might actually have a problem finding someone that will dethrone Hansen's -- they're just *that* amazingly delicious)... I guess my expectations were way too high when coming to this place; ironically, it was the random finds that ended up being better... and this applies to all three countries I visited and sampled baked goods from this year. Specifically talking about this place: not worth going by free Kringlan shuttle bus and walking four blocks in the rain when there are some yummy places in the city centre. 

Rating: **1/2

Jaswoj Bakery [Updated]

Bakery: Jaśwoj Bakery
Address: 3015 Parkerhill Rd, Mississauga ON (1 more location on Dixie & Burnhamthorpe)
Website: n/a
Style: Polish
Price: $

Actually, I'm a little surprised that Jaśwoj Bakery, unlike other Polish businesses, still claims by their name that they're a bakery first, though even in the time that I've been around and shopping here I've seen the actual bakery part shrink, get worse and the deli section expand. In the beginning (of my, most unfortunately, coming here, not of the bakery's existence), they had so many original and unique goodies, all freshly baked at great prices and pretty high quality. I actually haven't come back in maybe two years (maybe more?) and have frequented other Polish delis/bakeries since then, since we stopped shopping once you got the impression that the baked goods were going downhill and the sausages and cold cuts can be bought elsewhere. But, although I can't exactly say their baked goods are well, good (though these guys do make *the* best doughnuts in the city), this is most definitely the best Polish bakery in Mississauga (though I'd always recommend going to the Wisla plaza location!!!!) / To be fair, the sweet buns with various fillings are insanely cheap at $0.99, but everything is cheap as well: the actual fillings are so skimpy that what you see is what you get and as for the rest, you're pretty much eating bread, so, as for me, I'd prefer paying more and getting a little more than just dough. The poppy seed loaf (or was it labelled as "coffee cake", I'm not sure now?) at $3.99 was a favourite before and now, well, it's clearly seen better days. The amount of poppy seed has dwindled to the point of extinction. There's some crumble and icing, but judging by the weight (the very first indicator of how good your poppy seed confection will be ;D), and the same goes for the buns, the super lightness is a sign there's going to be nothing in it. I passed that up and went instead, purely to add to the poppy seed label, for the equally weightless poppy seed bun.

I brought it back home and examined it in more detail and dun dun dun (yes, that's the cue for the music of doom!!), it looked a little familiar. As in Polcan, most disappointing poppy seed bun, familiar. Oh no. D: I've said it before, but I guess these are the advantages of Polish commercial bakeries (I really wish I were in another city/area and everyone made their own stuff... *sighs in longing*). It's pretty fair to say I wasn't too... excited with trying this again, but luckily, it was at least very fresh and edible. Besides this, though, the amount of poppy seed was as low as you could get and it must have been the glaze (done pre-baking and not as in icing), but there was something that bothered me about the smell. The glaze wasn't real egg or they used some funny aroma that I'm not aware of? I don't know that much, but I felt like something was... off about it, perhaps related in same way to the strange brown spots all over the top? O_o Let's just say, I won't be running back here for the buns...

I wasn't planning getting anything else besides this (the jam-filled was for the brother), but thought I might risk getting a piece of some cake behind the counter. This can be a scary endeavour, since a) the cakes might be old, b) some places charge a lot for the per kilo stuff, so you have to be careful with heavy stuff. Remembering that in my pre-Cake Tour days, I went to their second location at Dixie (the Wisła plaza -- which I, for some reason, prefer) for some Easter slab cakes and came away with two well-priced and tasty ones, I finally settled on a piece of cheesecake with cherry filling in some spots, a thin layer of cream at the top and a hardened chocolate glaze on top with slivered almonds. No prices are listed, so I was pretty amazed that half a chunk (5 pieces) cost $5.90! I was even more amazed to taste it and find it very fresh and soo good! The cheese part is actually really cheesy; you can pretty much file Polish cheesecake under two types, the one where the cheese mass is made more dough-y with added flour, eggs, etc. and the other which is pretty much.. cheeese; I prefer the latter. It's as rich as can be and you've gotta fast the rest of the day, but a sliver never hurt anyone... ^-^;;; So I was thrilled to just drive my fork into this fresh cheesy mass, with some hint of cherry and then the chocolate on top. OMG! This was waaay better than I expected!!

[NEW! Seeing as I've become a somewhat regular customer after that cheesecake, I thought it only fair to redo parts of this review and the ranking itself. In addition to being probably the only bakery/deli in Mississauga to actually bake their goods on a small scale and in-house and having the best cheesecake in the city (and actually, every other slab cake I've tried... nothing has been bad from here), they also have the best gingerbread (ask for the one with plum jam and cream).. this is the best gingerbread I can think of! *-* YUMMY! So, although I still wouldn't suggest getting the baked goods (or at least testing them for freshness), definitely go for the cakes. It's the best place in the city for them. ;)]

Rating: ***1/2

Benna's Bakery & Deli [Updated]

Bakery: Benna's Bakery & Deli
Address: 135 Roncesvalles Avenue, Toronto, ON
Website: N/A
Style: Polish
Price: $

A few stores down from Granowska's is what looks to be your typical, all-around Polish deli: grocery items on the shelves, various rye breads up front, meat and cold cuts on one wall and the "bakery" on the other half. The biggest difference is that when you take a peek at the back, you notice this place has got a full-fledged bakery in the back. Because of this, they not only have some pretty amazing baked goods you won't find anywhere else, but they've easily got the freshest, cheapest cakes by weight I've encountered.

They seem to be a big hit with just about anyone, and one of the reasons is that  these are already pre-cut into small slabs that are very affordable and get you, perhaps, three fairly generous portions. My fave from this is definitely they're poppy seed cakes which are just a small sliver of dough, poppy seed, and some lattice and glaze on top. For ~$6, this is amazing value, since it weighs a ton and is just... delicious. Sadly, I wasn't taking pics the last time I had it, so that will have to be added in the future.

Along the same lines are their absolutely tasty poppy seed twists (pictured). They have two varieties, one with glaze and one with powedered sugar. This, the former, is my fave of the two. Polish-style poppy seed mass twisted with flaky dough... *drools* I love this thing and these guys are the only ones I've ever encountered to sell this!

On the same day (sometime in July -__-) we bought the twist-ee, we also got picked out two cakes. My brother insisted on "something different", so that's why I couldn't get my fave poppy seed cake. *sighs* So, we got two things: the first was some sort of honey cake (~$3-4/half a slab). This was a small piece and we took it because honey cakes are always heavy and that means you'll be paying for it. ;) This one was a special kind (miodownik królewski -- if I remember correctly) since they're normally just with a layer of plum jam à la gingerbread cakes (pierniki) with layers of honey dough, jam, chocolate and coco on top, then an extra large serving of cream. Really good, although a tad bit dry (the traditional recipe is made with soaking the cake in honey liquor and obviously, you don't get the same here -_-).

The third item purchased was a cake with no name and with a tag saying "New!" next to it. So, we took the whole chunk (~$4) and so didn't regret it. This was really weird and even as I describe it, it probably won't sound like it works, but oddly enough, it really did. So, from bottom to top: chocolate cake dough, whipped cream, vanilla dough, mass made of poppy seed and coconut, more whipped cream, vanilla dough, orange jelly, vanilla dough, ladyfingers and sliced almonds coated in chocolate glaze. Yeah, there's four lines worth of layers for you. ;P This was amazing and much better than the honey cake. You had the softness of the dough and coconut, then the more hard and tough jelly and chocolate ladyfingers. Mmmmmmmmmm.... I'd have this again in a heartbeat. :DDDDDD

Final opinion: if you're on Roncesvalles and can't afford (or don't want to pay for it ;)) to get what Granowska's has to offer, go south for less than a block and pop into the back of Benna's. The variety, uniqueness, freshness and price won't make you regret it. ^__^v

Rating: ***1/2

Diana Pasticceria

Bakery: Diana Pasticceria 
Address: 4910 Tomken Road, Mississauga ON
Website: n/a
Style: Italian
Price: $$

Diana Pasticceria is one of three, I believe, Italian pastry shops (and cafe and hot table) along the Italian food strip near Eglinton and Dixie on the Toronto/Mississauga boundary. I've already been to one of them: La Sem, so here's another one. :P

Diana's is actually one of the more impressive Italian pastry shops I've seen purely in terms of variety. There are places you go to, and they have one or two things (usually cannoli and some cookies), so it's really hard to pick out something from them; this one, on the other hand, is just packed with various cake slices all prettily decorated, traditional pastries, cookies, gelato, you name it. Anyways, it took much deliberation to pick out two items (this was one the same trip as Jadranka and El Quetzal, so I needed to restrain myself :P), though I'm not altogether sure it ended up being worth the effort. Well, I can't say it was bad, but not stellar either (especially since the memory of Tre Mari was still firmly imprinted on my tastebuds ;D)... but let's begin!

The first on the list was a traditional sfogliatelle ($2.25), which is pretty much flaky pastry sliced into these very thin leaves and stuffed with cream or sometimes ricotta cheese. Not sure what version these guys made or if it was a little of both, this proved to be a disappointment. I can't say I've tried this anywhere else, so maybe I need a comparison, but still there was no problem with the dough itself, as can be pretty much expected, but I don't know why, the filling just wasn't tasty and then it was simply too rich to keep wanting to eat it nonetheless. One brother couldn't seem to eat more than one bite; not sure what his problem was.

The cheesecake ($2.50) looked really nice (and isn't it? :P) with its little bit of chocolate mousse anchoring a blackberry and a strawberry and physalis/golden berry dipped in yummy dark chocolate, but again, although it was pretty good, I found it overwhelmingly rich. Seriously, you cannot eat these things in one sitting! O_O The real problem was there was nothing to break up all the cheese; there was a sliver of jam between the dough and cheese, but you couldn't taste it. This would have been so much better with more jam or a little less cream cheese?


Overall, like I said, I really can't say it was a negative experience, since you can tell... taste these guys know what they're doing, but at the same time it doesn't necessarily stand out as being anything amazing. Although it has the same rating, I must say I preferred La Sem. At the very least, their chocolate-dipped fruit was great and the gelato (albeit being somewhat pricey) looks very good. I wouldn't mind coming back for that and then I'd probably end up with another treat to sample, because that's just me. ;)

Rating: **1/2

El Quetzal

Bakery: El Quetzal Bakery and Restaurant
Address: 2011 Lawrence Ave W, Toronto ON
Website: n/a
Style: Guatemalan, South American
Price: $

While going on a bakery tour of West Toronto, these guys came up on Google and really, how could I resist some more lesser known baked goods? ;) El Quetzal is tucked into a plaza directly east of Weston Rd, and it really doesn't look like much. Inside, I can't say they have so much variety, as they seem to be partly a restaurant (where you can order and eat by the big screen TV playing soccer ;P), a very small deli (with one shelf of goods) and an equally small bakery with a few sweet buns in the glass case. These are similar in style to the other South American bakeries on my tour (especially Pancho's).. well, I *do* only have two other bakeries, so perhaps it's a little unfair to say 'the others', but nonetheless~~

Out of the three South American destinations, El Quetzal definitely had the least selection and variety. I think there was something like four, maybe five bun options, although I believe all of them had nothing in them, so they were all very nearly the same (at least, I assume they had no fillings... the worker didn't know enough English, I didn't know enough Spanish and so it was really just a series of smiles back and forth :DD), despite differences in shape. In the end (after a few more smiles ^^), I settled on three buns (all $1/each, tax included = cheap-o-rama): the most boring of the group was this one with this little dash of icing sugar on the tip. I thought it might have cheese or cream or something in the middle, but it was just a plain bun. As with the others, it smelled of fresh yeast (which is such a yummy smell), although, as such, it got old really fast. This one was a little too doughy, especially how tall and airy it was. Definitely my least favourite.

Next up was this slice of uh, bread? I'm not exactly sure what this was, but it was an airy piece of bread with sugar baked into the top like a sort of crust. This part was good. The height was perfect too; it wasn't too doughy and you got this sugary topping with every bite.Tasty!

Last but not least is this bun which seems to be a signature of Mexican baking (at least, Asian bakeries sometimes have similar buns and they call them.. "Mexican buns" :P) I don't know why I always thought this was something else, but this is essentially a plain bun like the first one but with a mix of butter and sugar creamed together and smeared over the top. Now, that is an excellent idea! This was probably the best of the best, though the second one was also quite good. It's not anything amazing, so I suppose it's good to have an idea of that beforehand, but it wasn't a disappointment, though I did prefer my other two uh, trips to South America. In terms of bakeries, that is. :P

Rating: **

Jadranka Cafe & Pastries

Bakery: Jadranka Cafe and Pastries
Address: 257 Scarlett Road, Toronto ON 
Website: http://www.jadrankapastries.com 
Style: Bosnian
Price: $$ 

Jadranka is a teeny tiny pastry shop (with the most adorable red and white heart decor!! ^-^;;) tucked in the corner of a small plaza along Scarlett near Eglinton. Fortunately, I found this place online while bakery hunting in the area and knew exactly where to expect it... and we still managed to drive past this little place and had to turn around. :D

Anyways, these guys are perhaps smaller on the inside and all their goodies are housed in a single glass case (with the exception of a tray of baklava on the back counter and two 'squares' sitting on top of the refrigerated goodies). Inside the glass case, you've got perhaps a dozen different, individually cut cake slices and squares, ranging in price from $1.99-$2.50. The vast majority are multi-layered torte-like creations with various creams, some chocolate, some looking like nut or coffee and pretty much all of them possessing the original Bosnian names (the price list was therefore not very useful for me and I have no idea what was purchased; I just picked out what looked good and different), so it seems like you have to be in the know. Or, well, you can ask, which I didn't do. ;P

So, I came out with three items (two for $1.99 and one for $2.25, I believe). The first came from that 'squares' compartment, since I didn't want to take all cakes (I must admit I'm not the biggest fan of creamy cakes, although these guys may change this a little XD). This ended up being a somewhat strange thing made up of cracked meringue on top and with a filling that no one could accurately place. All anyone could say was that it was pretty gooey: nuts and caramel, maybe? Like I said, no one really knew anything for sure besides the meringue, but it was nonetheless quite good.

The next was this itzy bitzy square which was close to impossible to split up, but managed to be the biggest hit with the brothers: layers of chocolate cream, crushed nuts and nut/chocolate sponge cake in between. The sampling of this one, I gotta admit, was followed by a, "why on earth don't you more of this stuff?!?!" So this one proved to be popular with one brother, at any rate. (it was too small for me to get my bite of it though :/)

My personal fave was the pink cake (and that has nothing to do with the colour of the icing either, though yes, it *was* hard to resist its adorable double-pinkness. :P) Like the meringue one, I had a hard time figuring what this was. In the store, it looked like some sort of fruit pieces from far away, but looking at it (and eating it) in more detail, I found that the dark pieces were also dough. This was pretty much a mish-mash of sponge cakes -- maybe a little like the torte version of bread pudding? All I know was that this thing was good, really good! Mmm... dark pink ganache, light pink icing with soft and moist sponge cake made all the more moist with the fact that this was soaked in liquor. Ohhh, the pink did not deceive! *-*

Overall, seriously there are so many Eastern European (ahem, Polish places should especially get the hint >.>) bakeries who need to take Jadranka as a great example: slice up your cakes in small pieces, make them interesting and unique from one another and you've got yourself an amazing cake shop! You're not scared of taking more than one (versus these giant slabs sold by kilo) and it still turns out affordable (an old man was in front of us and he got probably 12-14 different pieces and paid the same as you would for one cake) and you can just sample a little bit of everything -- great idea and well, it tastes great too. :3

Rating: ***1/2

Aristos Greek Bakery

Bakery: Aristos Greek Bakery
Address: 633 King St E, Hamilton ON
Website: n/a
Style: Greek
Price: $$

The Greek Corner Store is a small-ish store that I always thought was some sort of convenience store. Well, convenience store it is not. Part-Greek deli, part bakery, these guys are apparently the only Greek bakery west of Toronto (well, in this part of the province at any rate).

Anyways, so I got a chance to get my hands on quite a selection of goodies, all, of course, slathered and positively dripping in honey, but really, was else could you expect? Their selection isn't huge, but they have all the staples: baklava, various phyllo pastries stuffed with nuts, bougatsa and some more standard cookies. Nothing is priced and, as such, all I knows is that a box of five items (four pictured, one eaten) cost $9.50.

First up on the list: a slice of bougatsa: custard pie. This is phyllo dough (plenty of honey) with this gigantic layer of custard right in the middle. Usually it's very pudding/custard-like, but it was almost overwhelmingly eggy, with the giant amount of filling most resembling scrambled eggs.. which was not very tasty, in my opinion.

Much better were the nutty treats, starting with the kataifi roll, which is pretty much a baklava filling of nuts and spices wrapped in angel hair pasta-like dough. This when then dunked in syrup, of course.

My personal favourite was what I sort of ended up calling the "spring roll": that same filling of nuts and cinnamon wrapped in a hard, flaky dough. Yes, I suppose I'm not the best at describing it, but it was good: good crunch, not soggy, and more than well spiced. Yum! :P

Last but not least was the traditional baklava with fluffy, honeyed dough and stuffed with what seemed like not enough nuts. Similar to the others, it was good, but not the greatest.

Rating: ***

Pars Bakery and Pastry

Bakery: Pars Bakery and Pastry
Address: 6089 Yonge St, North York
Website: n/a
Style: Persian
Price: $$

[I come back after a considerable hiatus. Actually, I've been touring... cake touring (aka on holiday) in three countries and have come back with 13 bakeries to review and a few closer to home, so let's just get started~~]

While on my last trip to Highland Farms, I discovered another addition to their pretty huge bakery section: mostly savoury, flat breads from Pars Bakery and Pastry, a Persian bakery which bakes their goods in Markham, I believe, and sell it from their store on Yonge St in North York.

The only sweet offering from them (at least in the supermarket; with "pastry", I'm assuming their store has a lot more selection.. I need to get over there one day *-*) was "Armenian style" Gata sweet bread ($3.59, if I remember correctly), a fairly flat "cake" of sweet, yeast dough with a mass of sugar and milk folded into the middle. It actually looked a lot simpler than it was, since from the outside, it just looks like a piece of bread, so the sweet milk filling came as a pleasant surprise. We cut it into slices, heated it so the filling softened considerably and mmm, you might not believe what a big hit this was in the house! This is definitely a must-try, especially for those who don't like overly sweet things or just want something light with a cup of tea (or coffee). ;)

Rating: ***

Tre Mari Bakery

 Bakery: Tre Mari Bakery
Address: 1311 St Clair Ave W, Toronto ON
Website: http://tremaribakery.ca/ 
Style: Italian, Portuguese 
Price: $-$$

Tre Mari looks like and *is* an institution in the heart of Corso Italia. Fifty years old, I believe it's also the only Italian bakery in the neighbourhood. With those kind of stats, how could I NOT end up here while exploring the area? :P I suppose Tre Mari is your typical Italian "bakery" (at least here in Toronto) in that you've also got your coffee shop and hot table and deli. In addition to this, they have a fairly impressive variety of cakes, cookies, baked goods (though I recognized a vast majority of these to be Portuguese) and, of course, traditional Italian (well, Sicilian -- as the poster on the wall with a picture and description of each item claims) pastries: cannoli stuffed with cheese or chocolate, sfogliatelle, choux puffs in a variety of shapes and toppings, tiramisu, etc. Although I must say I sometimes have a hard time picking stuff out at an Italian bakery, I really had a tough time narrowing it down to three items. After a long wait, I ended up with these goodies ^^:

Well, I ended up trying two, since the brother snatched up the tiramisu ($2.75) as soon as he could. He's a fan, I suppose. Strangely enough, this classic of classics actually ended up the least exciting from the bunch and came out a bit of a disappointment. The cheese, cream and layered ladyfingers were there alright, but there was nowhere enough liquor for the drenched effect to be there and the dessert came across as rich, but too "dry" for it to compare to other places.

In a somewhat odd though at the same time predictable twist, while the others didn't seem that exciting and definitely weren't looked forward to like the tiramisu was, they proved to be the better ones of the bunch. The first of these two was a fairly simple apple cake ($1.75): chunks of apple stuffed inside a soft layer of dough which was glazed and coated with slivered almonds on top. There was nothing really "special" about this thing, but it was good! My mom was actually accusing me of getting something so boring, and I'm not exactly sure what to say about it to make it sound as good as it tasted, but it was just yummy! I loved the dough wrapped around the apples, and yes, I'm horrible at this, but good stuff! :P

Really not sure of item #3, I settled on this.. ball ($2.25) based on the icing and cherry on top. It looked like a mini, coated doughnut! ^^;; All I could see was that and that there was some sort of cream or custard stuffed in the middle of it. Bringing it back and examining it in more detail, I could smell two things: lemon and alcohol. Ohhh, it looks like I ended up with the right thing. :DDDD This was pretty much a ball of lemony, slightly liquor-soaked sponge cake cut in half, filled with lemon custard, and drenched on top with a hard sugar glaze. Perhaps it could have needed a tad more liquor in the dough (yes, I am very pathetic), but other than that, the opinion was unanimous: very good and much better than the tiramisu!

Well, here comes the end verdict: I can see why they've been around so long. ;) And yup, definitely worth a return visit!

Rating: ***1/2

H&A Bakery [RIP]

Bakery: H&A Bakery
Address: 3290 Midland Ave, Toronto ON
Website: n/a
Style: Chinese
Price: $ 

[Erm, yay? I finally got down to updating my layout a little bit. Not the greatest work of art, but I tried. *sighs* Given it's the first time I actually changed anything since opening this thing two years ago, it should still count for something. Right? ^.^]

H&A is (yet another) Chinese bakery located in east Toronto and whose baked goods I found in both T&T and Oceans. For whatever reason, they have only two options in either store, so I'm a little confused as to why they go through all that trouble for two cakes (both of which have been tried) and which aren't necessarily that good either.

Nonetheless, at Oceans, I got their steam cake ($1.19), which I was curious to try as I hadn't had this nor seen it anywhere except T&T and was curious how a smaller bakery would fare. As can be seen from the picture, it was pretty huge and instead of being nice and moist, as any sort of steam buns almost always are, they pretty much crumbled upon contact. The texture was sandy and oddly greasy; there was also this lingering taste of vegetable shortening. Not sure why, but that was the only thing you could really taste and that wasn't really a good thing.

A week or so later, I spotted their "egg white cake" ($1.49.. or was it $1.29 O.o Don't remember..) at T&T and having read that there was no shortening (like in the steam cake) on the ingredients list, but rather eggs and lemon jam, I thought it would be a tastier treat. It certainly seemed like it and through the plastic wrap, it was definitely much moister than the former. In this sense, I was right. It was definitely tastier with that ever so slight hint of lemon and moist mass of sponge cake. Taste-wise, it was nice and refreshing, but I thought it way too doughy and again, despite the moistness, it was crumbly, so just eating it plain was a little like eating sand. The taste was *exactly* like the dough in fruit flans (of the sponge cake variety, not a flaky crust) or fruit and cream cakes, so I can't say there was anything definitively "Chinese" about it. Going with that, I think it would turn out pretty well if you were to halve it lengthwise and just add your own berries or custard; it wouldn't be so doughy and you'd make yourself a yummy cake for under $2! :D

Overall, it was exciting to find something different at the supermarket, but I'm really wondering why, of all Chinese bakeries, they chose to stock these guys, as there really isn't anything all that unique (or overwhelmingly good -_-) about them.

Rating: **