Ma Maison

Bakery: Ma Maison
Address: 4243 Dundas St W, Toronto ON
Website: http://www.ur2busy2cook.com/
Style: French
Price: $$$$

On Saturday (i.e. yesterday), I unknowingly ended up on a CT3: three bakeries were chanced upon, purely by luck, while we were aimlessly navigating through the streets of Etobicoke and Toronto. The other two came about completely without having dug anything on them, but Ma Maison was one that I'd driven past a few times on the way to Solero, but never had the chance to step inside. Well, today was the day.

Despite the steeper prices on French pastries in general, I can't say I've ever had the impression I've been cheated. Quality (and training) comes at a price and I'm more than happy to pay for it. ;) However, this has been the first time where I came away not entirely satisfied with how much money I spent and what I received in return. Ma Maison (despite the somewhat cheesy name -- then again, I'm really not the one to be commenting on cheesiness ^-^;;) is an authentic French shop with the workers addressing you in French once you walk in the door. The only difference from Paris is that you're greeted with a smile -- har, har har! (don't mind my humour, it's the (only?) result of six years and two French degrees -.-) On the store front, it's called a boulangerie, patisserie and traitteur, although I would perhaps reverse the order a bit. In fact, judging also by the website name, this seems to be the place where you go for a light lunch or take home entire quiches or savoury tarts and pates (made by the super-chef behind the whole operation) more than cakes and breads. The half dozen (filled) tables of customers seem to prove this theory.

In terms of the pastries and baked goods (my reason for being there), they have all your staples: fruit tarts (large and small tiny), elaborate cake slices, mostly chocolate, and a few not so exciting viennoiseries such as croissants and pains au chocolat as well as large pans of bread pudding and fruit cobbler, which probably would have been, in hindsight, the wisest choice. One thing that sets this place apart from French patisseries in France as well in Toronto is that there's not a price to be seen anywhere, although the price is... indeed there. It was only as they ring in the items that you realize how much they cost which is, as I always say, not very customer-friendly. One other thing that also strikes you -- this is as I was carrying the paper bags to the car -- is that the sweets are minuscule and weigh absolutely nothing. Whether it's because they're designed as an eat-in dessert to your quiche or they've been shrinking, the portions are without a doubt quite measly, a comment I don't think I've ever made before.

For the first purchase, I got a cinnamon stick ($2.49) which was in the yeast goods and which was particularly unimpressive. For one, it was small and I think it must have been made with two tablespoons of flour. There was none of that perfect, buttery flaky-fluffiness you come to expect from French baked goods. On the contrary, it was strangely dry and lacked flavour (cinnamon itself is not expensive, so I would have liked to at least have more of that) -- not what I was hoping for.

For the uh, "big" purchase, I picked out a tiny tart with cherries ($4.99). Unlike the cinnamon stick, this was actually delicious, although it didn't last very many bites. French tarts aren't huge things in general, but I've never come away with a feeling of "where did it go?" like I did here. Strangely weightless, it nonetheless had an amazingly flaky and buttery shell with a spoonful of what I think is almond mass. On top were dried cherries revived in (I hope!) what I identified as some sort of alcohol. The idea was a weird one and, although the taste was really nice and sweet once you started chewing, the initial texture was that of topping a cake with handfuls of dried cranberries.

At any rate, although the taste was pretty good and the tart especially yummy, what you got was simply not worth the price. :/

Rating: ***