Mercato Fine Foods

Bakery: Mercato Fine Foods
Address: 1 Queensgate Blvd, Bolton ON
Website: http://www.mercatofinefoods.ca/ 
Style: Italian 
Price: $$-$$$

Hi, Bolton! The Cake Tour has come to town! :) One more random hiking trip to who-knows-where courtesy of the brother has resulted in my first bakery in Bolton.. and that's always exciting.

Mercato Fine Foods is, in a sense, your typical Italian deli: hot table, some grocery items, as well as the usual breads and pastries behind the counter. Those pastries likewise include a fairly large selection of all the classics such as cannoli and other Italian pastries, fruit tarts, various creamy cake slices. In typical Italian fashion, neither prices nor descriptions are readily available; at least I believe this to be so because my brother doesn't know how many anything was. Then again, he doesn't remember how much paid either, pegging it from anywhere between $5-7... for two pastries, and one of them the usually lesser priced cannolo, this isn't that cheap, regardless of where it was in that range. 

The first item up for trying was the ubiquitous cannolo. Liking to have a frame of reference, this was just one more addition to the great big -- unofficial -- cannoli challenge and how did this one fare? Okay. It was somewhere in the average range, with pretty good cheese filling (one or two chocolate bits). The shell was quite brittle and crumbled, flaked off, and came apart very easily; even while positioning it on the plate, the two halves cracked open, making it more difficult to eat (and get both shell and filling in one bite).

The second item was the "rum" baba, sponge cake soaked in most likely sugar syrup and stuffed with cream which was a little too pudding-y in consistency. It was... alright, but not great, which could pretty much sum up everything. Certainly not the worst Italian place, but not on the upper echelon of pasticcerie either.

Rating: **1/2