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Some pics from a recent visit to La Bastille Boulangerie Patisserie. Everything my friends, spouse, and I have had has been delicious perfection.
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" La Bastille, French Bakery, 760 Birchmount Rd, " - Highly commendable viennoiserie and patisserie find inside an obscure Scarborough strip plaza.
Talk about dedication!! Confronted with a sudden sweet-tooth attack, I decided to follow the recommendation of our fellow foodie " Googs " and made a special, loooong track down from Richmond Hill to Eglinton, just to give this new, highly raved, outfit a try.
So glad the drive wasn’t a wasted effort! In fact, based on the incredible price point and quality of their products, it was actually worth the long-ish journey!
Nowadays, for most newly found French pastry products. When it comes to ‘value and quality’ comparison purposes. I like to use my neighbourhood gem - ‘DUO’ as a reference yardstick.
As such, when I noticed the average price of La Bastille’s traditional French pastry products costing at least 1/3 less than the price of their Richmond Hill counterparts ( DUO, Ruelo ), La bastille easily won this round hands down! ( eg., Tarte Tatin @ $ 5.75 compare to DUO’s $8.00! )
As for the cake/pie/tart products. At first glance, I just love their extensive use of an authentic, Parisian style, crunchy, buttery sweet, almond shortbread crust as base. Though presentation wise, the products were less refined, exquisite and eye-appealing (than DUO’s),
however, most made up for this shortfall in the taste department. The Almond Apricot Tarte and the aforementioned Tarte Tatin being such examples.
Both the fluffy and light Almond Croissant and Pain au Chocolat were pretty enjoyable, The almond one better executed and more delicious. However, the ultra-buttery versions of DUO’s are still IMHO, the best north of Eglinton and hard to beat!
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After some nudging from Charles awhile back, I went recently to Rahier and had this wonderful fig tart with an almond base:
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Looks GOOD Doc!! In the fall, their ’ PLUM ’ tart is even better!!
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Holy fig!
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https://laboulangeriedundas.com/
Impressed with the multigrain from La Boulangerie.
I will be back to order a sandwich. Most sandwiches are around $12.
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Their baguettes are very nice too…
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Had a chance to finally try some stuff from Bakery Pompette. Really great all around. Will have to try more of their breads and pastries in the future.
Pain au chocolat - buttery but not greasy, flaky and airy, chocolate nicely bittersweet.
Leek and goat cheese quiche - creamy and light, with a lovely crust.
Ham and cheese croissant - same great pastry with ham, cheese, and possibly bechamel.
Beef short rib sandwich - braised and richly flavoured short rib; crusty, chewy, and appropriately oily foccacia; arugula and aioli for accents.
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I’m not sure Pretty Little Layers counts as a bakery. Rochelle DeSouza describes her operation as a micro-patisserie and appears to be the sole person doing everything. I picked up the cake from her at a new-ish townhouse, so I think she operates out of her home.
She specializes in entremets, which are cakes constructed out of a variety of layers. For my wife’s birthday, we chose the Pistachio Raspberry - a base of pistachio financier topped with white chocolate feuilletine, vanilla panna cotta, raspberry geleé, and pistachio Bavarian cream.
The visual appeal alone is stunning. And the cake itself is marvellous - light, not too sweet, intricate, and a range of textures in every bite.
We will definitely need to try some of her other creations.
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@DrJohn , @THECHARLES , @elvisahmed and other Ontario posters, do we want to continue this bakery thread and the dessert thread, or would you prefer new threads for 2024?
I’m easy either way. At some point threads do become a bit long.
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Agree with DrJohn. Some popular threads tends to get pretty long. Maybe like the ’ What’s for Dinner ’ thread…have a new update every year?!
…strat with Bakeries in Toronto - 2024?!
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*update every month
Looks fantastic!
Purchased a loaf of seeded bread, some dips, a lemon financier, French flan cake, lemon tart and almond croissant at Blackbird Baking Co in Kensington today.
The sweets were fine. The lemon tart is a favourite. The lemon financier has meringue on top and lemon curd in the centre (no photo, I ate that one)
The seeded bread tasted like a day-old bread to me. Do some bakeries sell day-old bread as fresh? I haven’t had this experience at Blackbird or any other bakeries selling expensive bread in Toronto before.
I am glad Blackbird moved the breads to behind the counter, so some handsy customers aren’t touching bread they aren’t buying.
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Yesterday , I picked up a cinnamon roll, 2 chocolate pecan caramel cookies ($3.95 each before tax) , 3 Crèmes Caramels ($6.50 each before tax) and chocolate almond croissant at Bakery Pompette, coming to around $43 after tax.
One brownie at Emmer was $5.75 before tax , $6.50 after tax lol. A little steep.
Emmer only had brownies , an olive oil cake slice and various pre-made sandwiches left by 2:30 pm on a Sunday.
The $3.95 cookies (maybe my favourite cookie in town) and $5.75 brownies are cracking me up. Very intentionally avoiding going into the next dollar, understandably. It’s hard to sell a $6 brownie.
I know the Circle and Squares butter tarts are selling for $5 before tax at coffee shops around town.
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