Cukiernia Pawłowicz [Mimi's World Tour]

Bakery: Cukiernia Pawłowicz
Address: Chmielna 13, Warsaw 
Website: n/a 
Style: Polish
Price: $ 

This was the first (and only) time I had to stand in a lineup out the door for a bakery in Poland.  That was enough to get me interested, though it was the 'hot doughnuts' sign and everyone in the street eating doughnuts that made me decide to give it a try, even if I'd already gone to a bakery that day.

I took the one with white chocolate filling and coconut and icing on top. This pączek was a little junky-looking and it was more homemade than, for example, Blikle, which tries to look fancier and more aesthetically-pleasing, but this one was better, trust me. I wouldn't say it was over the top exceptional or that it was the best I've ever had, but still really good and the best doughnut of my Poland trip.

Rating: ***1/2

Pâtisserie Marie4poches

 Bakery: Pâtisserie Marie4poches
Address: 111 Boulevard Sainte-Anne O., Sainte-Anne-des-Monts QC 
Website: http://www.4poches.com/
Style: French  
Price: $$

And so the tour continues! The next stop along the peninsula, both in terms of sleeping and cake touring was this bustling bakery along the highway strip in Ste.-Anne-des-Monts. This not only seems to be the go-to place for bread and baked goods, but also a popular lunch destination. Hence being at the end of a long lineup of people ordering soup and sandwiches. In terms of selection, these guys have a little bit of everything, ranging from pastries to cookies to kouign amann? At least, my heart skipped a beat (embarrassing, but true) when I saw it written on the chalkboard on the wall, but alas, it was nowhere in sight... Either way, a nice variety, all labelled and priced which was, and is always, appreciated. 

Without the kouign amann, I had to think a little bit harder about what to get and finally went with this pack of two cinnamon buns ($5 for a "box"). These are baked in the box they come in, meaning they're trapped in there amidst butter and sugar. Slightly crunchy on the top, soft and tasty dough inside, and a gooey bottom of cinnamon and butter. Mmmm... the one downfall is that this is clearly designed as two cinnamon buns, but you just can't stop. Both nearly disappeared in one sitting. Sad but true. 

Best cinnamon bun of the trip and of recent times. Too bad about that kouign amann; I would have loved to try it.

Rating: ***1/2

Gott [Mimi's World Tour]

Bakery: Gott 
Address: Bárustígur 11, Vestmannaeyjar 
Website: http://www.gott.is/
Style: Icelandic 
Price: $$ 

If there ever was an appropriate name for a place, it's Gott (Icelandic for "good"). A little cheesy, perhaps, but Icelanders are good at cheesy. ;) And Gott is good at cakes. Really good. These guys are in fact a restaurant and the reason we went here in the first place was because we didn't know where else to go and someone on the street said this place was "good" (I really need to stop...). Finding half of the people on the bus and ferry here, we figured it was the best place to try. Now, being both financially challenged and somewhat... cheap, I'm not one for taking dessert. Yes, their booklet of four or five homemade cakes looked amazing, but I wasn't sure if I was willing to splurge. My friend, in the end, ordered for me and the decision was made. -__- 

 But! I was very happy it was. :P This is the only perfect rating from this particular Iceland trip and I give it very readily. Gott may have good food, but the cakes are where your mouth starts watering and you just dream of eating this again. I knew the second I spotted the date cake (1100kr, if I remember correctly), it was mine. Served warm with homemade caramel sauce and homemade ice cream (yes), this was heavenly. I'll say outright that I am in love with date cakes (caramel only makes it better), but this just blew my mind. The moist date cake, that caramel, that ice cream... *-* OMG!

My friend took the snickers raw cake (same or similarly priced) and while this looked slightly different from the raspberry topped photo -- and I think both of us admit to being a little disappointed when it didn't come looking the same -- the taste was excellent. I actually hadn't had raw cakes prior to this year's trip to Iceland, where I had a few of varying quality and made my own, of horrible quality XD, and this one was excellent: rich and creamy in such a way that you wouldn't believe there was no dairy in that nutty cream. Delicious crunchy, nutty bottom and chocolate coating. Perhaps not the same calibre as the date cake (both agreed), but a "good" (stop it, Mimi) indication that these guys know cake. 

In the end, "good" is an understatement if there ever was one. A highlight of this and of all Iceland trips! 

Rating: ****

Baltic Deli

Bakery: Baltic Deli
Address: 506 Days Rd, Kingston ON
Website: n/a 
Style: Polish
Price: $$ 

Well, it didn't take me long to find Kingston's Polish deli. It came about purely by accident, but the board along the side advertising Polish doughnuts and poppy seed rolls helped. :P Located next to the Japanese tea store (yes! Kingston is a city of pleasant surprises!), this humble, no-frills deli carries your Polish and other Eastern European basics and sells it with uncharacteristic (sorry, Polish delis) friendly service: cold cuts, limited hot food, imported products and bread... shipped from Future Bakery and Sweet Temptations, in Toronto. Spotting this, I was a little disappointed and doubtful as to whether the doughnuts were also shipped in from Sweet Temptations. Please say it isn't so. :/ Given the limited amount of baked goods in-store, this including a few slabs of cheesecake and other Polish classics, sweet cheese buns, and no sign of aforementioned poppy seed rolls (which I assumed meant the omnipresent and not-quite-liked-by-me makowiec).

And yes, doughnuts. (around $1) Just one variety here, the traditional plum variety, and maybe, just maybe they looked and tasted a little... familiar. At the very least, they were fresh, which can't be said for a great many Polish delis a lot closer to Sweet Temptations. Soft, airy dough and a nice coating of glaze on top (the clearest indication of how long it's been on the shelf), biting into these fluffy balls apres-hike made them taste so good. Perhaps not the best pączki I've had -- not by a long shot -- but fresh and tasty, these came as a welcome treat. I mean, who doesn't love doughnuts? ;P

Rating: **1/2 

Pożegnanie z Afryką [Mimi's World Tour]

Bakery: Pożegnanie z Afryką
Address: ul. Krakowskie Przedmieście 62, Warsaw 
Website: http://www.pozegnanie.com/index.php
Style: Polish
Price: $$ 

This cake tour isn't a bakery and I'm not even sure they make their cakes themselves. I was kind of dragged here by my great aunt and decided to take a picture without even noting the name or location of the place; I wasn't thinking that it would be a cake tour but there were complaints (editor's note: you know from who!) about what was the point of taking pictures and commenting on it if it wasn't going to be reviewed. So, with some online research, I found it.

Pożegnanie z Afryką is actually a coffee shop, and according to their website, the first coffee "store" (not a cafe; like a place where you buy quality coffee beans) in Poland, with a couple locations around the country. A part of the shop is still a cafe, with "very good coffee and tea". We also took a cheesecake. Although the presentation was nice, again, I'm not sure if they bake it. The cake was dry and meh. We went to a few bakeries/pastry shops and cafes during my time in Warsaw, but this had to my least favourite, and I usually like Polish cheesecake. Even my great aunt commented that "it'll do" -- her sign that she wasn't very pleased with it.

Rating: *1/2

Boulangerie Toujours Dimanche

Bakery: Boulangerie Toujours Dimanche 
Address: 443 Av St-Jérôme, Matane QC
Website: https://boulangerietoujoursdimanche.com/
Style: Canadian, French 
Price: $$  

And so the tour of Gaspé begins! This little bakery on Matane's main street is rather a cute one, though it's also one of those bakeries with not much in it. A few loaves of bread, a couple of desserts, mostly unlabelled and not priced, and not much else besides. I would almost go so far as call it more of a cafe than a bakery at all, especially given the fact that lunchtime foods and seating are more numerous than baked goodies. 

Nonetheless, it is rather seldom that I'm suckered into free samples, but I was waiting quite a bit for someone to come out from the back and took a small piece of the almond toffee square that was being offered. Let's just cut to the chase and say I had a second piece and ended up buying the whole thing. For one, because there was very little to choose from. Secondly, because I was hooked. ._. 

The almond square ($2.95) had the same -- maybe even more -- addictiveness factor as Daim (the Swedish toffee crunch chocolate): it's the toffee. Just looking at this, it resembled more a rice krispie square than any sort of delectable dessert, but one bite is enough to showcase the delicious combination of hard yet chewy toffee and chunks of slivered almonds. I'm not sure if there was even any dough or it was just that. Perhaps it stuck to your teeth and fingers, but was hard to stop. There might not be that much there, but this was good. 

Rating: **1/2

Eldur & Is [Mimi's World Tour]

Bakery: Eldur & Is 
Address: Skólavörðustígur 2, Reykjavik 
Website: n/a
Style: Icelandic, Crepes 
Price: $$-$$$ 

On my newfound quest to chart the many cafes in Reykjavik, I have the next in the series. Well, actually, this one was not found by me. I travelled this year (at least partly, since they did a stopover and I stayed on for 3 1/2 weeks more in Iceland) to Iceland with my mom and youngest brother. Because I need to show everyone how amazing it is here (I'm saying here because well, I'm onto my second trip this year, seventh trip in six years, and currently in my seventh week in Iceland ^^)! Anyways, one evening, the brother disappeared to explore the city on his own and came back a few hours later with a piece of cake from this cafe. Ah, it's good to know like-minded people! 

Eldur & Is is a bit of a joint venture: café, creperie, and ice cream shop. Taking that into account in addition to the fact that I now have the inside scoop on some cafés, I know this Daim cake (800kr) is not made in-store, especially when I once bought one from Ikea. ;) The ice cream isn't theirs and being on the main street, it's probably one of these *shudders* tourist places. (Sorry, bro) It looks a little too good, but well, I suppose it's fair to say it tasted quite good, but that might be because it's from Sweden. Good ingredients, natural taste: nutty and chocolatey with a toffee crunch.

I'd tell anyone to take the crepes if they decide to come here: at the very least, they *do* make those. :/ As mean and nitpicky as it sounds, I don't like the practice of buying cakes from supermarkets and selling them per slice, sorry; there are cafes who can manage to bake their own cakes and should be rewarded for the effort. If you don't know how to bake, hire me. I'll give you a four star rating with my skyr cheesecake and Westfjords blueberry torte. Oh yeah!! :)

Rating: *1/2

Len's Bakery [RIP]

Bakery: Len's Bakery
Address: 37 Dundas St E, Napanee ON
Website: n/a
Style: Canadian
Price: $ 

[NOOOOOOOOOOO! They did not just close down Len's!!] 

Len's... ah, Len's. *-* Thinking back to Len's always gives me warm, sugary memories, even though I drove past this bakery and was questioning whether it was even open. I mean, the "e" on their sign wasn't quite whole and downtown bakeries of this age, predominantly in towns and smaller cities, are more often than not shut down. Seeing someone walk out, I thought I would give it a try and bridge that bakery gap between Kingston and Toronto.

Len's is part of an endangered species of bakeries: the homestyle doughnut bakery. With Tim Hortons on every stinkin' street corner, pumping out factory-made, defrosted doughnuts, no one seems to want fresh, normal doughnuts from anywhere else. It's so sad! I love doughnuts (uh, a rather embarassing confession when put like that) and it's actually not that easy to buy them; not bacon doughnuts, mind you, and excluding any sort of ethnic variations. Where has the humble doughnut gone? Well, you would think from the lack of bakeries that sell doughnuts that no one wants them, but Len's proves otherwise. I walked in and found a lineup to the door with most people being told the variety they wanted (I was pining after the apple fritters) was already sold out. A woman in front of me excitedly snatched up the last three of something, happily explaining she'd never gone that late in the day (noon) and found them still there. Of course, these guys also sell bread, squares, and muffins, but it looks like everyone is really there for the doughnuts.

And I was there for the doughnuts. With the apple fritters gone, I opted for the doughnut fritters ($3 for half a dozen). That's right: doughnut fritters. How could I possibly resist? Freshly-made, deep-fried dough fingers made from a soft, moist cake dough and coated in a thick honey glaze. I can smell and taste them as I'm writing this. These were heavenly; this was perfection. I can't remember the last time a doughnut had totally blown my mind like this. It had been so very long.... I couldn't stop; I've grown infatuated with them -- I should have gone for a dozen! ;_____;

Rating: ****

Galeria Wypieków [Mimi's World Tour]

Bakery: Galeria Wypieków Lubaszka
Address: Nowy Świat 48, Warsaw
Website: http://lubaszka.pl/
Style: Polish
Price: $-$$ 

The "blue bakery", like a lot of the bakeries I ended up trying, turned out to be somewhat of a chain, this time at least in the Warsaw area with 10+ locations. I always feel a little disappointed about that, but maybe it's also a sign that they're good? This 'brand', for example, has been around since 1945, so I think that's a good sign.

They sell what I would call the classics of Polish baking: yeast buns with various fillings, creamy cakes, cheesecakes. I don't remember how much anything cost.

Because I was told to always pick poppy seed baked goods, I picked the poppy seed bun even though I'm not the biggest fan of them (editor's note: unforgivable! scandalous! sacrilegious!). It was fresh, so the dough was soft and good; the poppy seed filling was also very good, especially when it comes to Polish-style. It wasn't the best I've had (it was no Antosha, that's for sure), so I would say this place is good but not amazing.

Rating: ***

Boulangerie des Halles

Bakery: Boulangerie des Halles
Address: 125 Rue Saint Germain O, Rimouski QC
Website: n/a
Style: Canadian
Price: $$-$$$

Well, technically this place doesn't exist online, but inside the little shopping centre in downtown Rimouski -- housing likewise a fish market, butcher, cheese shop, cafe, and sweets shop -- there is a bakery. Actually, I was lured in by the sign in the window: patisserie. I believe this referred to the sweets shop on the corner, which also sells candy and chocolate. Not quite in the pastry and cake mood, I ventured further into the shopping complex and found a true bakery, complete with breads, and squares and pies... in fact, I can almost say I was surprised to find the selection quite British, complete with Queen Elizabeth squares (whatever those may be? O.o) and Chelsea buns. Few items were priced, of which the pies, which looked really good and homemade and cost a fairly reasonable $9.

Not wanting to buy a whole pie, I caved and went for the tray of cinnamon buns, which smelled amazing and looked pretty scrumptious, too. Mmmm.... I am a sucker for cinnamon buns. I found the cost a little steep, however: $8.75 -- just a few cents short of a pie and I'm not quite sure it was worth that much. Nonetheless, tasty, gooey cinnamon buns that you just want to tear apart and devour. :D Good amount of icing, fragrant cinnamon filling, a classic dough and a good overall cinnamon bun -- sadly, it didn't stay on top for long. The best cinnamon bun (there were two, mind you) of the trip came a few days later, but this nameless bakery with no address is certainly a great stop for the area (and was a good idea for stocking up on baked goods before embarking on the tour de Gaspésie). ^^

Rating: ***

Vort Daglegt Brauð [Mimi's World Tour]

Bakery: Vort Daglegt Brauð
Address: Strandgata 49, Hafnarfjörður
Website: http://www.okkarbakari.is/
Style: Icelandic
Price: $$

This bakery was recommended to me two years ago and it was only now that I got the chance to try it. The name alone was worth the visit; for those unskilled in Icelandic, it means "our daily bread" and just so happens to be located across the street from the church. If that's not genius, I don't know what is.

Housed in an old building with authentic decor, this has a pioneer village vibe... and I love it. ^^ The website indicates this is somehow tied to a sort of chain of bakeries, which always annoys me, no matter if they're baking the same baked goods or not. Not sure what's going on?? Regardless of this, they have a nice selection of classic Icelandic pastries in addition to a few varieties of pretty and colourful doughnuts that looked good (what? I actually have yet to try an American doughnut in Iceland, and for heaven's sake I am not speaking of *shudders* Dunkin Donuts... ugh, let me go rinse my mouth now) -- all at reasonable prices. Personally, the doughnuts weren't the greatest value, as the traditional varieties cost less and I felt like it was worth paying a little more to get a pastry, but nonetheless their ástarpungar ("love balls"; 165kr) may not be the most photogenic of fried dough, but they were flavourful and filled with raisins.

The ömmu kanilsnúðar (Grandma's cinnamon rolls) I've only had at the Icelandic bakery in Toronto, so it was nice to try these traditional yeast-free, cookie-like cinnamon rolls elsewhere. Generous, spiced cinnamon filling, tasty dough. 

The fanciest of the bunch, the danish (325kr, I believe) was a flaky, custard-filled treat with both strawberry and chocolate icing and a pinch of slivered almonds. It wasn't the best I've had in Iceland, but one of my favourites, with flaky, flavourful dough that wasn't soggy (I've had that on more than one occasion) and with a nice amount of filling. Good stuff.

Well, perhaps my purchases weren't exactly what you think of in terms of our daily bread, but they were good nonetheless and this does make an (other) excellent addition to my humble blog. ^.^

Rating: ***