Laleh Bakery

Bakery: Laleh Bakery

Address: 130 15th St W, North Vancouver BC 

Website: facebook

Style: Persian, Middle Eastern

Price: $$

I had a mega craving for zolbia ever since having some phenomenal ones from nearby Golestan Bakery. Zolbia were on my mind for weeks, so when I decided to further explore the bakeries lining Lonsdale, I just knew what I was going to get: zolbia. A whole box of them! At any rate, a whole smaller box of them. ;) One of the most highly rated Persian bakeries I found was Laleh and the fact that many people commented on the reasonable prices made it my top pick. After all, those sugar syrup-soaked pastries sold by weight do add up pretty quickly. In addition to typical Middle Eastern pastries like baklava and kataifi, Laleh also sells a wide assortment of cookies and cream-stuffed treats and cake slices; all, I believe, is sold by weight and nothing is labelled or priced. 

But this time around I was here for the zolbia ($4.62 for 5 pieces). My mouth was watering just looking at them, so I don't know if it was simply a matter of too high expectations, but I was almost immediately disappointed. I don't know if it was a bad batch, but the strands of dough were so thin that they were hard and brittle - some were so overdone that they were a dark brown (such as the one in the back). The purpose of soaking them in syrup is to get them hard on the outside and chewy and gooey on the inside. They're not supposed to be hard candies. I was so let down that I gave the rest of the box to someone else and even they didn't expect it to be shards of dough. I was heartbroken. 

Rating: **1/2