Westfalian Bakery

Bakery: Westfalian Bakery 
Address: 187 Kenneth St, Duncan BC
Website: facebook
Style: German, European 
Price: $-$$ 

Continuing along my (second) tour of Vancouver Island, I stopped in Duncan at this long-standing German bakery downtown. Westfalian Bakery has, perhaps, seen better days. Or at least more copious days. Coming there at what I would call peak bakery time (late Saturday morning), the bakery was fairly empty with a majority of the shelves bare, especially those that contained more traditional German items, and the bakery itself was uninhabited; it took a while for someone to acknowledge there was a customer in the store. In this sense, I simply couldn't believe that all poppy seed danishes and strudels had been sold prior to my coming, but yes, I did actually ask and got the disheartening answer that they were all gone. *sighs* I always seem to have that kind of luck... Besides those empty shelves, the bakery did have several squares and pieces of cake, one or two more "Canadian" pastries and some cookies.

Wanting something a little different, I went with the cherry walnut square ($1.30), which proved to be cheaper and smaller than I had expected. I probably wouldn't have minded a bigger piece and pay a little more for it.... That being said, I tried to cut off a piece with my fork and almost instantly realized I hadn't made the best choice from all that was available. Exceptionally chewy, almost to unmanageable levels, I was disappointed to find that the cherries in question were candied cherries. This was what made it so chewy and impossible to cut. The slightly crunchy nut topping was fairly good as was the softer filling; perhaps it wasn't at its freshest, yes, but it was those chewy, artificially red cherries that really got to me. Should have been better.

Rating: **