Piegus European Bakery [RIP]

Bakery: Piegus European Bakery
Address: 3478 Lawrence Ave E, Scarborough ON 
Website: n/a 
Style: Polish
Price: $$ 

I seem to give Polish bakeries/delis a bad rap with their baked goods and yet more and more they seem to sneak up and surprise me with good baked goods. Or it's simply that everything in my area sucks. :P Anyways, so my youngest brother returned from a trip to Scarborough with the announcement that he had found a Polish bakery -- very good! :) I'm really lacking in places from GTA East, so it was a welcome addition to the Cake Tour, not to mention a yummy one. Yup, Piegus (second location in Oshawa) is a more or less typical Polish bakery and deli with your usual selection of doughnuts, cakes by weight, etc. They bake everything themselves and everything we got, at any rate, was fresh.

Doughnuts: well, of course they have pączki. A Polish bakery wouldn't be one otherwise, it seems. :D These come plum-filled (the brother snagged the mini versions for $0.55/each) and have a more watery glaze than the usual. These were good, although not remarkable.

What was remarkable were their doughnuts (oponki; around $0.99 each?). These I have yet to see elsewhere (in terms of style), but these were whoa! In a sense, they don't look like much: fried plain dough with powdered sugar on top. Fantastic crunch on the outside and you wouldn't believe how lightweight they were! I don't know how they did it, but these were weightless. I'm sure they didn't make *me* weightless (;DDD), but these were so good! Simple, not too sweet, and delicious. I had these alongside the Portuguese doughnuts I bought and I swear this was the best of the three.

Next up was the bakery's take on blueberry cheesecake ($17.00/lb) My brother swears it's the one of the best Polish cheesecakes he's had. I, on the other hand, disagree completely; this was actually one of my least favourite Polish cheesecakes and I do love cheesecakes. For one, I felt it was a ripoff with the large dollops of blueberry gloop (with not a fruit in sight) which weighed down the cake (more $$) without the addition of more costly cheese. The dough on the bottom was too thick and crumbled too easily. The cheese tasted more like a New York style cheesecake (and I sensed that regular cream cheese had been mixed into the baker's cheese): thick, heavy, and sticky -- this was for me a disappointment. 

Last up: oh yes, I got a poppy seed treat for the sampling! ^.^ A full makowiec (traditional Polish poppy seed roll; $7.99)! Normally, I don't like makowiec: I don't like the dough and I definitely don't like the grey-brown poppy seed mass in a majority of rolls, but this was one great makowiec. For one, there was tons of poppy seed and not that much dough -- a rather unusual thing for Polish baking. It was so tasty too! Mmm... with the exception of that cheesecake, I was quite impressed with this trip to Scarborough... ;)

Rating: ***