Sesame Pastry and Deli

 Bakery: Sesame Pastry and Deli
Address: 2783 Lakeshore Blvd W, Toronto ON 
Website: n/a 
Style: Polish
Price: $ 

From afar, this small bakery doesn't scream Polish as they usually do. The name alone makes things a little ambiguous, but stepping up to the window of baked goods, you know that this is another Polish bakery on a rather impressive bakery strip and that this place is a veritable institution. Despite its somewhat tired storefront, those in the know seem to flock nonetheless for the baked goods; while I was there, three different "regulars" popped in. The selection is limited to the items in the window: several varieties of Polish slab cakes: cheesecakes, multi-layer cream cakes, yeast-based and fruit-filled, as well as a few other baked goods. Namely poppy seed buns. :P Friendly, approachable service, fresh goods, and great prices seem to be the three things to take away from this place.

Everything in the window not only looks fresh, but tastes fresh, and this is something that -- unfortunately -- does need to be mentioned when it comes to Polish slab cakes, though I've never had a problem with the other bakeries in this smaller Polish neighbourhood in Etobicoke. And they're not all the same, which was nice to see. It was neither the same old cakes nor was everything a variant of each other (i.e. cheesecake topped with peaches, cheesecake topped with cherries, etc.). Not to mention this is really the go-to destination for well-priced treats: an ample piece of cheesecake (able to be cut into three portions) cost a little more than $3. Same goes for the other cakes. I also liked that the owner suggested reasonable, if not slightly too small slices, instead of giving you that roll of the eyes when you don't want to take the whole darn slab...

To the goodies, though! First up was the poppy seed bun ($1.50), a nice big bun, albeit simple with no garnish except for a wee bit of crumble, but with delicious poppy seed filling. It tasted homemade and was so yummy! Mmm, even if not in the mood for a cake, step in for this one!

I also grabbed three cake pieces (around $3.20 per chunk; all were then divided into three ample slices). The first was two layers of soft sponge cake-like dough with a layer of homemade cherry filling in the middle. Loved the dough. Taste-wise, it was quite good, though I found the filling a little too gloopy for me. It was actually better on the second day once the filling had set and absorbed into the dough a little.

The second cake was a yeast cake with pockets of apple slices and blobs of gloopy fruit. I have to say I wasn't a big fan of this, on account of the gloop. The taste was good, but it was the one real miss. I certainly wouldn't take this one again.

But the cheesecake made up for it. With maybe the exception of the poppy seed bun, this was not only the best, but amazing. I was actually stunned by how much this actually resembled a Japanese-style cheesecake: it was so airy and the cheese was incorporated into the dough so that you could just go on eating this forever without feeling nasty. ;) Mmmm, this was so good! It has to be one of my favourite cheesecakes!

With that, having to limit yourself on this stretch of Lakeshore from around Kipling to Islington has become even more difficult. Sorry about that. :P

Rating: ***1/2