Comfort Table Bakery

Bakery: Comfort Table Bakery 
Address: 166 Hwy 17 W, Vermilion Bay ON
Website: n/a
Style: Canadian 
Price: $-$$ 

Look at that butter coverage!

There is something so exhilarating for a cake tourer such as myself about encountering a bakery in the middle of nowhere (no offense ^^). I mean, as Canadians, we're not necessarily that developed when it comes to local, small-town bakeries; perhaps a couple decades ago, but nowadays, it's getting harder to find that village bakery, especially when even towns of a considerable size have nothing better than pre-packed junk at the supermarket. Sad but true. So to come across a quaint, absolutely charming bakery right off the side of the highway in the not-very-big town of Vermilion Bay, up in northern Ontario (about 250km NW of Thunder Bay and 70km from the Ontario-Manitoba border) is an event worth celebrating. :) It's especially worth celebrating when it's really good -- this was on the second last day of my brothers' road trip and was one of the bakery highlights. Luckily, I got the chance to try some myself. In the words of one: "We went to a couple of cities, we tried some of the more 'famous' places and in the end, the best bakeries were the most remote ones."

Comfort Table's name says mostly all; they make the soul food equivalent of baked goods: gooey cinnamon buns, decadent butter and other tarts, and other home-style, Canadian basics. What set it apart from others was the fantastic taste and quality of the goodies.

"Magnificent!"says one; I second that!

They bought two tarts: a classic butter tart and a strawberry tart. Soft and thin homemade tart shells were so good; add into that delicious fillings that were both amazing in their own right. The butter tart was really good: it was airy and soft with a fantastic runny butter filling (with that amazing froth on top) that was worthy of top honours in my butter tart challenge.

The strawberry tart was just as good, if not better. Not too sweet with a slight tartness, the filling wasn't gloopy like it would be elsewhere; it was real chunks of fruit in a homemade jam. Whoa. *-*

Now, I don't know about some of the other stops on the tour, since I wasn't there for all of them, but this certainly deserves special mention. I'm not sure how often you drive from Thunder Bay to Winnipeg, but just in case: pulling over at Comfort Table is a necessity. ;)

Rating: ****