Gló [Mimi's World Tour]

Bakery: Gló
Address: Laugavegur 20b, Reykjavik
Website: http://www.glo.is/
Style: Raw, Vegan  
Price: $$$  

Gló, both a restaurant and natural food store with several locations and forms in inner and outer Reykjavik, is definitely the healthy food pioneer in Iceland and at the forefront of catering to those with alternate diets: vegetarian, vegan, gluten/lactose-free, raw. In addition to their healthy salads, soups, and main dishes, they do also make their own cakes, though they don't have too much in terms of selection. Like the savoury items, not everything necessarily falls into a niche diet, so they do have options for everyone and you know you're getting cake with simple, quality ingredients (which is sometimes not the case elsewhere... x_x). That's always a relief and I appreciate getting something good.

Nevertheless, I turned this into a cake tour after slices of cake were handed out as part of a friend's birthday party, but I will admit that when I heard the birthday "cake" was vegan raw cake (849-1099kr) from Gló, my heart sank and the bakery fanatic in me was pretty devastated. Raw cake?! Why raw cake!?  I immediately pictured something resembling the disgusting raw cake I baked for someone's birthday (my one and only attempt) and recalled my one trip to Gló for lunch with another friend -- I hate to say it, but I didn't like it then and thought the money I spent could have gone towards something a lot more tasty; in some ways I don't really see... the hoopla behind this place (somewhere out there, I am sure my former "landlord" is laughing in satisfaction), even though I myself am very ingredient-conscious and buy organic whenever I can.

 Anyways, back to the raw cake: I wasn't exactly looking forward to it at first, but when I was presented with a piece of raspberry chocolate cake, I changed my mind. I mean, it looked really good! Layers of pseudo-brownie, with nuts and chocolate, and a raspberry cream in the middle, this was a surprisingly rich, perfectly sweet treat that had a lot of flavour and didn't have that slightly off taste to it that gluten-free or vegan baked goods often have. I would have liked more raspberry taste to it, the chocolate being too overpowering, but it was delicious!

I also got a chance to try the snickers cake, a nutty cake with crushed nut bottom, whole peanuts, and a caramel-like sauce with chocolate poured on top of everything. This simply didn't compare to the raspberry chocolate one -- personally, I don't like snickers bars and peanuts in my baked goods, so it wasn't to my taste. This one also didn't have the cohesion of an actual cake and resembled more a chocolate bar.

So, in the end, Gló did manage to redeem itself and I can say that if you want a good treat for those with or without special diets, skip the meal and head right for the dessert. :P

Rating: ***