Planet Organic Market [RIP]

Bakery: Planet Organic Market
Address: 170 Lakeshore Rd E, Mississauga ON
Website: http://www.planetorganic.ca/
Style: North American, Organic
Price: $$

Upping my organic labels a little bit here... Actually, on the day when I was anticipating four bakery stops, I ended up with one. On the day that I just went for a routine trip to the Danish Pastry House, I somehow ended up with two places to review -- excitement!

This was my first trip to Planet Organic, an organic/health food supermarket which turned out to have a bakery in it, something that came as a pleasant surprise for me! I mean, in general, these kinds of places only sell pre-packed breads from other bakeries, and that's never any fun. The bakery itself is pretty tiny, but they have a few interesting and unique sweets that you won't find anywhere else and is actually well priced, with individual squares and cookies setting you back somewhere between $1.50 and $2.00. The larger items, though there aren't that much, do cost more and don't seem like as much a bargain, and of course, they have some pre-packed stuff as well.

Upon entering the store, it didn't take me long to spot the bakery and promise myself to do a cake tour. I was actually on the verge of getting their pumpkin cookies, which looked tasty (for what they were, nothing fancy or elaborate).

Then, I noticed the puffed kamut squares ($1.49/each or pack of two for $2.79). Seriously, this was like a blast to my childhood -- as a kid I loved these things! I haven't seen puffed wheat squares (the original) on this side of the country... ever! At any rate, I really liked the concept of taking simple recipes and then just making them with organic ingredients as opposed to well, making everything resemble granola bars (no offence ^^;;).

 

The puffed kamut squares, in particular, were all organic ingredients and made with kamut, agave syrup (versus corn), brown sugar and cocoa. I really liked the idea of substituting wheat for kamut; the latter has a fuller flavour and with the agave syrup, gave the squares this indescribable, more complex taste compared to the traditional recipe I always used. Really enjoyed these things! As a matter of fact, I'm just thrilled!

Rating: ***

Adonis [Updated]

Bakery: Adonis Supermarket
Address: 1240 Eglinton Ave, Mississauga ON (several locations throughout Montreal and area)
Website: http://www.adonisproducts.com
Style: Middle Eastern
Price: $-$$

(Thanks to the visitor who called my attention to the fact that this place is now open! :)) This is good news for fans of Middle Eastern pastries and those hunting for a good supermarket bakery, especially in terms of sweets. To put it briefly, just head over to the big "Pastry" sign and you'll see for yourself.

Backtracking a bit: Adonis is a smaller chain of Mediterranean/Middle Eastern, predominantly Lebanese, specialty supermarkets from Quebec. The majority of their locations are in the immediate Montreal area. The new Mississauga location, the first location in Ontario, on the other hand, is large and home to what should be officially named "The Great Wall of Baklava"! Yes, the Great Wall of Baklava. Probably the most Middle Eastern pastries, cookies, and cakes you've seen, all in one long line of platters. Although you can't say it's cheap, it's not bad in terms of Middle Eastern pastries! This, like Starsky is for Eastern European baked goods, is also a great place for trying pastries for those who may not know all that much or find themselves a little lost in front of all that filo.

I wanted to pick out something new/different, mainly because the selection is there! Wanting to settle on something with a fixed price (though it actually wasn't), I was deciding between one of their elaborate desserts/cake slices ($2.99/each) and the knefeh cake (sign says $3.99/each, though I actually paid $20/kg for it -- my piece cost $3.30) and settled on the latter.

Mind you, I had never heard of knefeh cake before then and did the research on it only afterwards. This version, served with sesame flat bread resembling a pita, is a Lebanese specialty. The "cake" itself (Adonis calls it a cookie) pretty much consists of a thick, somewhat crumbly layer of semolina over top of a slice of mozzarella-like cheese. This was given with the sesame bread (semi-pictured) and a container of fragrant sugar syrup which is poured over it upon eating. This was... well, strange. The first try, I ate it as is (unheated) and couldn't really see the use for the bread. The second time, I overdid it in the microwave and the cheese melted a little too much. By then, the sesame bread had been eaten. Perhaps not being so much a cheese lover, I'd try something else next time.

[NEW!]  Yes, Adonis isn't only that wall of baklava! ;) Lovely cakes and pastries, European style. Even some of the pre-packed stuff (they had more and it was of higher quality in the past) like sweet buns, cookies, pastries, and pound cakes are worth sampling -- I've developed an especial love for the white chocolate and pistachio shortbread with raspberry jam in the middle ($2.49 for a pack of two). The butter, the butter!!

Rating: ***

Pâtisserie Sebastien

Bakery: Pâtisserie Sebastien 
Address: 3306 Yonge St, Toronto ON 
Website: n/a
Style: French 
Price: $$-$$$

I went on another Cake Tour by car through Toronto again and, as seems to be the case, it definitely didn't go as planned, and the number of potential bakeries went from five to one, namely due to the bakeries no longer existing, being sold out of everything, or simply being ridiculously overpriced for something you can get considerably cheaper at a four-star (that is, rated by me) bakery. :(

Hence, I ended up exploring this bit of Yonge St for the first time and chanced upon Pâtisserie Sebastien, a relatively small cafe with an equally-sized variety of elaborate cake slices and traditional French baked goods. The former looked fairly impressive, though a tad bit pricey (at $6.50), especially as everywhere else, the fruit tarts (which are always my fave) are slightly cheaper than say, the fancy chocolate and pastry concoctions. Some had a bit of a Japanese influence (the art also supported this theory of mine, and lo and behold, this is yet another Franco-Japanese team -- at least what I could get out of the article (in Japanese) on the Japanese-Canadian businesses website -- à la Pâtisserie 27! ;)) Sadly, the selection I experienced was a far cry from the photos featured on the Japanese site of shelves stuffed with lovely cakes and viennoiseries, which I assume means the place has seen better days prior to my visit. The inclusion of cupcakes (cupcakes!?!?) especially cheapened the otherwise lovely display. :/

Having risked mousse-y creations on a hot day once (and only once), I knew it wasn't worth risking another catastrophe, so stuck to the baked goods this time around. Though there wasn't much to select from, I picked out the apricot danish ($2.50) as the potentially tastiest of the bunch (there was also an apple). Dough was excellent: light, airy and deliciously buttery (as it should be!! ;D) and especially yummy with the soft, sweet apricots in the middle. The bed of I'm not sure what (apricot is usually served with an almond paste mixture or it could have been some sort of custard) was also tasty, though the graininess of the otherwise smooth and mushy inside bugged me a little bit; it felt like it didn't belong. O.o

Overall, there may not be that much selection, but I quite liked it and you can tell that the guy in charge knows what he's going. I have yet to go up and down fully on Yonge north of Eglinton, but from first glance, this is the best place, in terms of both value and original, tasty-looking pastries and viennoiseries.

Rating: ***

Ding Dong Pastries

 Bakery: Ding Dong Pastries 
Address: 321 Spadina Ave, Toronto ON
Website: n/a
Style: Chinese 
Price: $

I'm somewhat returning after a bakery dry spell with two new entries and the promise of amazing things to come: the most ambitious World Tour to date, right in the hotbed of Scandinavian baking and hopefully a few more obscure, where-on-earth-is-that bakeries. Denmark and Sweden (with a mandatory stop in my beloved Iceland ^-^). Two months. Wow. ((if you have any suggestions, especially for Copenhagen and Stockholm, now is the time to let me know! :)))

Ahem, anyways, I was going along Queen Street W this past Saturday and thought that I might as well pop into one of the many Chinese bakeries in Chinatown that I have yet to visit, and so Ding Dong it was. And thanks to one of my visitors (you know who you are ^^) who helped me out and told me what are the best things to get!!

Now: Ding Dong Pastries is, essentially, just another Chinese bakery along Spadina with not as obvious storefront as others and less crowds and madness than say, Furuma (they are, it is to be noted, a little north of the Chinatown bustle). One reason for this is, perhaps, that they're not just another 3/$1 place. At $0.70/each or 6/$3 for their meat/sweet buns, they're a little more expensive (lol, and I'm referring to mere cents here, by the way..) than their competitors, but seem to make up for it with larger baked goods and an impressive variety of both Western-inspired and traditional Chinese baking, the latter including stuff that I can't remember seeing elsewhere like trays of 'rice-roll cakes' or bags of cookies and intricate little well, pastries.

On my trip, I got four items, so let's jump right into it, shall we? :) First up was the recommended sesame seed balls (at least, I assume these were the ones) (2/$1), denser dough balls stuffed with red bean paste and *coated* in sesame balls. These were a big hit with everyone at the house and the highlight of this bakery, though ha ha I guess the description says it all... good stuff!

Second were the egg tarts. These guys had three options and I was a little unsure of which ones to get: milk tarts (2/$1; with what looks like a custard-like filling), small egg tarts in a more flaky shell (3/$1) and larger butter egg tarts (2/$1). I guess it was the "butter" that decided it (what a shameless, shameless thing to say XD). These are without a doubt available at all Chinese bakeries though I've never tried them (perhaps the 'egg' has scared me off), so I guess I'm not really sure how they're supposed to be, but the dough shell was really tasty with a nice bit of flakiness, but still soft. The texture and topping of the filling were also quite nice and creamy, but the filling was just... really eggy. Maybe it just takes getting used to or... I wonder what's supposed to make a good egg tart?? Perhaps the itsy bitsy ones are better (if only for the reason that they won't have so much filling :P). I'll have to keep sampling, widen the range a bit.. ^^;;

I took a little... artistic freedom with the last two and picked out one sweet bun (the good old doughnut -- 2/$1), which proved to be a little soggy and lacking the nice crispy outer layer of well, Chinese deep fried goods. .__.;; Good, but not the best.

Lastly, these wee taro pastries available next to the cash were freshly baked (as in still warm on the tray) and, at $1/each, were surprisingly costlier than any of the buns or meaty pasties, but they looked neat and tasted quite good, with layers of slightly flaky dough folded over each other and interlaced with taro (purple yam) -- perhaps it were these intricate little things that the guy was so studiously making behind the window of their open kitchen? ;)

Overall, Ding Dong turned out to be pretty good and is definitely one of the preferred bakeries in Chinatown (so far) and beats the others I've been to on Spadina, at any rate. Pop in, if only for a treat and the amazing bag. ^-^;;;

Rating: ***