Cha Do Raku

Bakery: Cha Do Raku 
Address: 750 Rue de Bienville, Montréal QC
Website: https://cha-doraku.com/
Style: Japanese
Price: $$$ 

Did you know there's a Japanese tea shop in Montreal? If you haven't done an outright search for it or don't live in the immediate area, you may not know that; after all, it's hiding on the corner of a small, purely residential street (well, if you don't count the used kimono and Japanese housewares store located a few doors down) just north of Mont-Royal - I wouldn't even be surprised if you lived in the neighbourhood and didn't know about it. However, yes, there is a Japanese tea shop that specializes in importing their own teas from Japan and also/mostly serves tea that you can enjoy in their eclectic space. And what makes enjoying tea in a tea shop even better? Homemade dessert!

That's right - Cha Do Raku also has a very small selection of dessert (and random Japanese vegetarian dishes). All sweets are, I believe, $5 each. I had the matcha cardamom cake and the cheesecake. The words "matcha" and "cardamom" grouped together excited me beyond belief - those are two of my favourite dessert ingredients... in one dish. In a sense, I was so excited that I wasn't expecting what greeted me on the plate. It was a brownie. The matcha was there; the cardamom needed a major boost, but underneath that delicious dusting of matcha and cream, the one thing I took away from this was that the brownie was very dry. Just that kind of dough? A little old?

I also decided to try the "cheesecake". Now, there are several types of Japanese-style cheesecake that I love. It could have been a tofu cheesecake, a no-bake, fresh cheesecake, a souffle cheesecake... there were so many options and yet there was one I wasn't anticipating: cheesy cheesecake. Cheesecake au gratin, if you will. In a word: cheese tarts!!!!! I swear, one of the worst Japanese dessert trends - if not the worst - is the cheese tart. Slightly salty, barely sweet and with that baked cheddar-like topping. Noooo.... I can forgive the drier matcha brownie, but not that cheese tart. x__x Next time, I'll stick to the tea!

Rating: **