Planète-Pain

Bakery: Planète-Pain 
Address: 2020 rue Gauthier, Montréal QC
Website: n/a
Style: North American 
Price: $$ 

I love when you just turn the corner and bam! you're met with a bakery that didn't appear on any of your online searches and, somehow, that makes it special. It also helps to stay in different areas and go down streets you'd never have gone down before. And so it happened this time. I got a great deal on an apartment (Airbnb) for my trip to Montreal and ended up in the neighbourhood. Knowing that I'd never explored the area, certainly not on foot, I searched for bakeries in the area and didn't exactly find any, but all it took was a trip to the Metro and there was a new, perfectly uncharted bakery for me. :)

Planète Pain seems to be a newer bakery; at the very least, searching the address gives me the name of another bakery; it's a very small place with barely enough room for two customers to stand. There might have been one table for two, but I'm not so sure about that. In accordance with the tight space, there isn't that much selection and what there is seems to come in little more than ones and twos. Most of this is, as the name suggests, bread. They have a few fairly unique pasties, but these are all savoury, with fillings such as mushroom, cabbage, etc. Sweets-wise, there really isn't that much. There were a couple cakes, sold by slices, as well as a handful of baked goods; that's about it. All seem to be what I would consider European-inspired, but simpler (and more unpretentious) than the French-style patisseries scattered throughout the city.

On my visit, I took the cinnamon bun (around $2.75). Despite the danish in the actual name (danoise à la cannelle), this was probably least "danish" cinnamon bun I've had. In fact, this was more in the classic North American, ooey gooey cinnamon bun (Cinnabon) style than anything else and while it was better than the buns sold at malls by a long shot, I have to say it's certainly not my favourite type of cinnamon bun. Fluffy dough with plenty of cinnamon mass, a mix between the cinnamon and the cream cheese icing that oozed from above. Good in taste, but quite messy and simply too gooey for my taste.

Rating: **1/2