Illichmann's

Bakery: Illichmann's 
Address: 1937 Gordon Dr, Kelowna BC
Website: http://illichmanns.com/
Style: German, European
Price: $$ 

Illichmann's is probably one of the my favourite places to shop for food in Kelowna. The store is split into two parts, with one part being a German/European deli with imported products, good cheese, and homemade sausages and cold cuts (the best in town), and the other dedicated to hot food and lunch specials along with a bakery. That being said, most bakery products do come from another local institution and pending bakery review: Specialty Bakery. Having come first, I did assume everything came from Specialty Bakery, but having seen the latter's lacklustre selection, I know that many baked goods are made by them or made exclusively for them.

So, in addition to the shelves of bread behind the counter, Illichmann's features a corner of individual baked goods ranging from sweet cheese danishes, doughnuts, to cookies and then has larger coffee cakes here and there, available in a couple of varieties. Not too shabby.

On my first trip, I took two items. The apple fritter ($1.65), along with the Kelownut, are from Specialty and actually turned into the redeeming factor... big slab of fried dough interspersed with chunks of apples (could have more) and covered in a thin layer of icing. Fresh, with a slight crunch on the outside and a soft, somewhat chewy inside. Pretty good!

I did excited about the poppy seed danish ($1.70). It's always hard to resist, but biting into it, I found it lacking in poppy seeds. They seem to have been carefully arranged on top, since it was just plain, rather generic, slightly flaky dough. It didn't really have any flavour and there weren't enough poppy seeds to help it out. Same thing happened with the big poppy seed ring ($8.99). I ate this over the course of a few days and by day two, I was sick of it. Again, it looks so generous on the poppy seed mass, but cutting into it, it was just plain sweet yeast dough, a bit dense and not that tasty. I mean, you can eat plain sweet bread if it's good, but I really struggled. I can't even understand why!

In the end, I stick to the deli (and my butter cheese!). 

Rating: **