Columbia Bakery

Bakery: Columbia Bakery 
Address: 2151 Bowen Rd, Nanaimo BC 
Website: http://columbiabakery.ca/
Style: German, Canadian 
Price: $$

Several years ago, I discovered that the city of Nanaimo has created a "Nanaimo Bar Trail", a local tour celebrating the city's homegrown hero: the humble Nanaimo Bar. Taking a look at the tour with the express purpose of covering as much ground as possible, I discovered that there really weren't that many locations, and not that many bakery locations, at that. Of the two on the list that I considered close enough to group together and make a Nanaimo Bar Trail of my own, Columbia Bakery was the first.

This long-standing European bakery in a relatively industrial area has a fairly impressive, almost deceptively lengthy array of cakes, baked goods and other treats that goes from simple cookies to marzipan sweets. I say deceptively, because upon further examination, many non-sweet items are located within this wall of display cases. One thing, however, they did not have was my star attraction: where were the Nanaimo bars? Can you believe it? They happened not to have any(more) that day. I couldn't believe it! My Nanaimo Bar Trail was going up in smoke before my very eyes...

Really, I would have been angry had it not been for the poppy seed square I had spotted. Yes, everything was right again! This classic poppy seed square ($2.99) had a delicious, generous poppy seed mass with a fragment of lattice and a thin layer of glaze on top. Yummy shortbread crust and overall fresh and flavourful. Would have liked to add a Nanaimo bar to this, but oh well... I'm happy as is.

Rating: ***