Fantail Bakery-Cafe

Bakery: Fantail Bakery-Cafe
Address: 333 Roncesvalles Ave, Toronto ON 
Website: http://www.fantail.biz/
Style: North American, New Zealand
Price: $$$

There's a (fairly) new bakery in town, at least on the already quite bakery-generous Roncesvalles, which is turning into one of the city's top bakery strips, at least according to yours truly. :P Having found out about this place in the newspaper and reading of its NZ-roots, I was worried that it had taken over the other Kiwi business on the block (Wisey's Pies), but Fantail is considerably further up the street, so now there are two -- can you believe it!?! Though, to be fair, there is nothing inside this vintage-inspired cafe to hint at it (except signature white coffee) and the baked goods are fairly universal, with items ranging from scones, cheesecake, to doughnuts and bread puddings. Items are labelled and priced, but I found them them quite costly, in particular the doughnuts and muffins.

The sign outside advertising sticky gingerbread cake got me really excited -- I am a sucker for gingerbread. Going inside, I was so disappointed to find it was the only item that was sold out that I was at a loss of what to take. *pouts* Equally a sucker for cinnamon buns and doughnuts, I settled on both. ;) The cinnamon brioche ($3.75) was certainly the better of the two: airy yeast dough with bits of orange peel and cinnamon incorporated into the folds of dough, then a dollop of spiced cream cheese icing more or less exploding from the inside and finally dusted with powdered sugar. Not enough cinnamon and I probably would have preferred more equal coverage for the icing instead of it all in the middle,  but the hint of orange was nice.

Being a doughnut fan... ahem, authority, Fantail's take had promise. At the very least, at a somewhat staggering $3, it should have! Small and unadorned besides a sprinkling of cane sugar and cinnamon, I was thinking that well, it better have... some sort of alcohol in it! ;D Big and airy, it lacked any sort of flavour; even the orange peel from the cinnamon brioche would have made a big difference. Not even the fact it was fried infused some flavour into it (granted it just being oil), as is the case for old-school, surprisingly delicious fried doughnuts (the fresh, sugar-sprinkled jelly doughnuts and doughnut holes of my childhood! *-*) Disappointing.

I would love to try that sticky gingerbread cake, but as it stands, Fantail was alright. It was that darn doughnut that really decided things. Sorry, little guy.

Rating: **1/2