Roma Bakery and Deli

Bakery: Roma Bakery and Deli
Address: 233 Barton St., Stoney Creek ON 
Website: http://romabakery.ca/ 
Style: Italian
Price: $$ 

Someone with business in Hamilton brought me back baked goods from another "new" bakery: Roma bakery, an Italian institution that seems to focus more on pizza (at least that's what both the website and customers seem to consider the signature item) than on any sort of baked goods. This, however, is the case with most Italian bakeries -- they always seem to smell more like tomato sauce than anything else... 

Anyways, besides the pizza, there is the usual counter of sweets available for those who are *not* there for the tomato sauce. ;) Despite the name of the bakery, these include your classic repertoire of traditional Sicilian pastries, the majority of which are stuffed with a cheese-based, creamy filling.

Of these, I got two versions of cannoli: the Sicilian and the Venetian... which I doubt actually is Venetian. Disregarding the authenticity, both were stuffed with the same sweet cheese filling and the difference between the two were the shells (besides the candied fruit things): one was a thin, slightly wafer-like shell while the other was a big, airy roll of puff pastry. Of the two, the Sicilian was by far the best, although it wouldn't make it onto the podium for greatest cannolo. Both, especially the latter, were quite large though, making the amount of cheese a little overwhelming for the amount of dough. I always find that when it comes to cannoli, or any cream-filled pastry, bigger isn't better.

Perhaps it was for this reason that my favourite (and all samplers, at that) was the ricotta pocket. As the name indicates, this was more a dough pocket than a pastry of slightly flaky dough stuffed with just the right amount of ricotta cheese filling. I especially liked the fact that there was more dough than cheese, making it -- for me -- a lot more enjoyable than the rich, very cheesy cannoli offering little else besides.  

Roma is a pretty good Italian bakery, but I think that their "homestyle", focaccia-like pizzas are after all their specialty.  

Rating: **1/2