Planète-Pain

Bakery: Planète-Pain 
Address: 2020 rue Gauthier, Montréal QC
Website: n/a
Style: North American 
Price: $$ 

I love when you just turn the corner and bam! you're met with a bakery that didn't appear on any of your online searches and, somehow, that makes it special. It also helps to stay in different areas and go down streets you'd never have gone down before. And so it happened this time. I got a great deal on an apartment (Airbnb) for my trip to Montreal and ended up in the neighbourhood. Knowing that I'd never explored the area, certainly not on foot, I searched for bakeries in the area and didn't exactly find any, but all it took was a trip to the Metro and there was a new, perfectly uncharted bakery for me. :)

Planète Pain seems to be a newer bakery; at the very least, searching the address gives me the name of another bakery; it's a very small place with barely enough room for two customers to stand. There might have been one table for two, but I'm not so sure about that. In accordance with the tight space, there isn't that much selection and what there is seems to come in little more than ones and twos. Most of this is, as the name suggests, bread. They have a few fairly unique pasties, but these are all savoury, with fillings such as mushroom, cabbage, etc. Sweets-wise, there really isn't that much. There were a couple cakes, sold by slices, as well as a handful of baked goods; that's about it. All seem to be what I would consider European-inspired, but simpler (and more unpretentious) than the French-style patisseries scattered throughout the city.

On my visit, I took the cinnamon bun (around $2.75). Despite the danish in the actual name (danoise à la cannelle), this was probably least "danish" cinnamon bun I've had. In fact, this was more in the classic North American, ooey gooey cinnamon bun (Cinnabon) style than anything else and while it was better than the buns sold at malls by a long shot, I have to say it's certainly not my favourite type of cinnamon bun. Fluffy dough with plenty of cinnamon mass, a mix between the cinnamon and the cream cheese icing that oozed from above. Good in taste, but quite messy and simply too gooey for my taste.

Rating: **1/2

Rustic Sourdough Bakery [International Correspondent]

Bakery: Rustic Sourdough Bakery
Address: 1305 17 Ave SW, Calgary AB
Website: http://www.rusticsourdoughbakery.com/
Style: Swiss, German 
Price: $$

Rustic Sourdough, in the middle of the 17 Ave commercial strip, looks like a typically German bakery; however, I went here because on the list of bakeries I was given, this one was listed as having a Swiss pastry chef and that seemed a little more new and exciting. The store is split in half, with a deli (cold cuts, cheese, etc.) on one side and the bakery on the other side. I was impressed by their large selection of all the German bakery classics: strudels, black forest, poppy seed cake [editor's note: poppy seed cake!? Why was I not informed of this? More than that, why didn't I get any brought back for me!], breads, tortes, cookies, etc. Prices were normal, reasonable.

I had a very hard time choosing one thing when I could have had just about anything. I was getting pretty sick of poppy seeds [oh, the pain in my heart! ;-;] or fancier cakes, so I picked out the apple strudel ($2.95) because I always like strudels, especially the traditional German style, with thin dough wrapped around a lot of apple filling. There was just the right proportion of cooked apple "sauce", whole apple chunks, and raisins and perfect amount of spice. Dough was good and not soggy -- a very good bakery overall.

Rating: ***

Ruth's Home Baking

Bakery: Ruth's Home Baking
Address: 3487 Concession 2 RR1, Kincardine ON 
Website: n/a 
Style: Canadian 
Price: $-$$

One brother went hiking in the area one weekend and, on his way back from the lighthouse, he spotted signs for this "bakery" and returned with two packs of baked goods for the reviewing. The "Home Baking" in this case is quite literal: the bakery is indeed attached to the owner's house in what was probably the garage and the goodies are what you would come to expect from good old-fashioned baking: pies, squares, butter tarts -- all of those Canadian classics, as I like to call them. Given this is a fairly low-key operation, it does need to be said up front that this place is *good* and puts a lot of more professional businesses to shame!

I believe that items are sold in packages of six or by slabs, these costing $6.50. The brother returned with two treats for the trying: the first were the date squares, which were excellent and some of the best I've had. They weren't too sweet, which always seems to be a problem with dates, as they're already sweet enough, and the oat crumble was just enough, not too much for to overpower the dates and not too little either, so you have a little bit of both in your mouth. Very good.

The second item was the butter tart. Looking at them, they resemble all the rest, but taking one bite... whoa. The household agrees: these are the best butter tarts we've ever tried. The tourist board for the Kawarthas has created a butter tart tour (38 stops!!) which WILL be done by me one of these days and those guys better be ready to treat and beat the high standard set by Ruth. ;) Fantastic, homemade tart shell with just the right level of flaky thickness and a delectable, buttery filling, set on the top and oozing inside. This little treat *melts* in your mouth. Holy-moly was this ever good. It's not fancy, but Ruth's baking is Canadian baking as it should be!

Rating: ****

Le Moulin de Provence [International Correspondent]

Bakery: Le Moulin de Provence 
Address: 55 Byward Market Square, Ottawa ON
Website: http://moulindeprovence.com/
Style: European, French 
Price: $$-$$$ 

[I don't know how it happened, but the story goes that the two idiots [i.e. my brothers] bought something from this bakery and brought it back to the hotel. One brother went to the bathroom with the impression that the other brother was supposed to take the pictures. Not sure what that other brother was doing in the meantime, but the first returned and ate what he got, thinking the photos were already done and it turns out they weren't. Upon getting scolded by me, they said that it'd be easy to find a picture online and use that. Yeah, thanks genius, because bakeries regularly make an item-by-item catalogue of their goods. :/ And so, for the first time EVER, my post lacks a product picture. Anyone would like to supply me with a photo of the millefeuille until someone returns here and gets it done for me? It'd be greatly appreciated. ^.^ You can become an international correspondent as a reward -- highly coveted honour, you know! Anyways~]

Moulin de Provence looks like Ottawa's most famous (and largest) bakery, right in the Byward Market. Although their selection is huge, with hot lunches, quiches, breads, and several cases of pastry classics (opera, religieuse, etc.) and other baked goods, the one memory I have of this particular bakery is the Obama cookies, which are in honour of the US president's visit there and you're reminded of that everywhere.

I was, however, not at all interested in the above mentioned cookies. I had the blueberry millefeuille (also known as a Napoleon in English) [editor's note: which is NEITHER photographed NOR priced -___-]. The icing wasn't too hard, there was lots of cream and the dough in between was crunchy and of perfect texture. This was very good.

Although Moulin de Provence felt almost like a touristy gimmick and I thought it was a shame that more emphasis is placed on this than on the actual food; the variety and amount of the pastries alone is worthy of notice. The great tasting pastries also reveals that it shouldn't be only thought of as the "Obama bakery".

Rating: ***

Boulangerie le Fournand

Bakery: Boulangerie le Fournand 
Address: 194 Rte 132 O, Percé QC
Website: http://www.boulangerielefournand.com/
Style: French
Price: $$

Well, just when I thought I wouldn't have any more additions to the Great Canadian Cake Tour, at least not this year, I chanced upon this bakery in the small, touristy town of Percé on my brief visit to Gaspé in September. Spending two nights here was purely accident (or chance) and just when I was heartbroken at the idea of having nothing to show for this trip of mine, along came Le Fournand. :)

This is the town's bakery (another was either closed down completely or already done for the season) and features most French bakery staples, like flaky tarts, buttery baked goods, and some cakes as well. Actually, given the fact that it didn't advertise itself as a patisserie, I was expecting a lunchtime spot and some bread more than anything else, so it was very nice to see a modest selection of, especially given the fact it's a monopoly, well-priced treats. Service was also very friendly.

Intrigued by the selection of "tarts" (they are essentially tarts, just cut into slices versus formed into shells... and I've forgotten the actual name -_-), topped with combinations such as pear and chocolate or apricot and almond, I decided to try one of these for my late lunch. :P And at $2.99, they were affordable too. I chose the apricot and almond which, yes, does resemble a slice of pizza -- pizza aside, I am insanely proud of this picture and think it has to be one of my best. Modestly speaking, of course. ;) The boardwalk and famous Rocher Percé in the background. Wow, that looks almost deliberate. LOL

Anyways: wonderfully flaky dough with a great texture with tasty slices of apricot, slivers of almond, and some almond mass underneath the fruit. I thought it got a little too mushy with all the paste and glaze, especially towards the middle where there wasn't enough dough to balance it out, but it was really good. Yes, it helps they're the only ones; however, no matter how many bakeries there are and aren't, Le Fournand is still a great place to eat in town and a highlight during my quick trip through Quebec. :)

Rating: ***

Peter's European Bakery and Deli

Bakery: Peter's European Bakery and Deli
Address: 3517 Lake Shore Blvd W, Toronto ON
Website: n/a
Style: Polish
Price: $-$$

It's not very often that I can report such good pieces of news (it's actually usually the opposite and I'm reporting the closure of a bakery previously reviewed here), but here it is: there's a brand new bakery in town and it's a Polish one! This bakery/deli opened towards the beginning of September (yes, I'm still a little behind with my posts) and unlike the vast majority of Polish "bakery and delis" in the GTA, these guys not only advertise that they have home-baked goodies, but I found they also tried to make the bright store with racks of baked goods in the window and signage in English a lot more open to those who don't happen to know Polish. This makes it one of the least intimidating Polish delis I've visited (my family is Polish, but, believe me, I still understand it can be a very daunting experience), so don't be scared to give it a try -- and the baked goods are yummy too. :P

Actually, spotting the two shelving units of treats in the window, they instantly felt familiar: so this was where Wisła deli got their yummy poppy seed baked goods from -- and, in fact, what makes Wisła deli so darn yummy! *-* I had a feeling that the latter didn't bake it themselves and I had always wondered who their suppliers were, since the baking was so unlike the usual, commercial bakery culprits. Expect fresh buns with generous fillings, Polish classics like cheesecakes and yeast-doughies (why not just copyright that here and now? :P), as well as a few more pan-European offerings like cookies and danishes, although at the same time, the selection wasn't as large as you might expect from an actual bakery versus the usual Polish deli. However, they had poppy seed and plenty of it when it did appear, so I mustn't complain. :P

So, I took away two items for my preliminary trip: the first was the poppy seed bun ($1.19). This and the larger poppy seed strudel ($4.99) aren't in any way strangers to me. I love both and will say that these are the best Polish poppy seed buns in the GTA. Yummy dough with tons of poppy seed mass inside (which is neither a sprinkling of whole poppy seeds nor the usual Polish poppy seed mass that I'm not too fond of) -- actually I'd even go so far and say that there's almost too much poppy seed mass at times; I could definitely do without the downright copious amounts of raisins, though .*doesn't like raisins*

The second item was a slab of cheesecake (pre-sliced in pound-cake sized rectangles and sold by weight; I paid $8.45 for my piece). There was just one variety that day so not sure if they change it up or it's always the same, but mine was the standard plain cheesecake (but with chocolate dough) with chocolate and walnut on tops. It was nice and fresh, not crumbling like some I've tried, as well as being rich and fluffy. I wouldn't go so far as to say it was the best cheesecake I've had, but it was a good one. :)

In the handful of actual Polish "bakeries" in the GTA, it's great to welcome Peter's to that list. They don't have that much and the store has more of that deli vibe than a bakery, but tasty, well-priced baked goods (especially of the poppy seed variety *-*) are what makes it worth a visit.

Rating: ***1/2