ottawa foodies

I wandered into Portuguese Bakery this morning. I picked up a fruit square, an "almond croissant"(not the kind we make at my work, but one made with fresh dough) a half dozen sandwich buns and a passion fruit and lime soft drink that I had never seen before and had to try. All this ran me $4.90. The square was very good. The almond croissant was kind of bready and pillowy. The buns were very fresh and made very good cheddar and tomato sandwiches for lunch. Most of the breads looked really appealing, I'll be back another day to try some different kinds. That is saying a lot because I get free bread from work every day, and I almost never buy bread.

I used to go this bakery frequently when I lived in Ottawa 5+ years ago. I'm not a huge bread eater but I could eat a whole loaf of their sweet bread in one sitting. So good you don't even need to add butter, just rip off a piece, chew and enjoy. The texture is almost cake like, but lighter. I have tried their pastries as well but not recently so I can't comment on them.

The place itself is a little worn but whoever is baking seems to care. I tried the sweet bread a few weeks ago now that I'm back in town and it's just as delicious as I remembered and the prices still very reasonable. Go Portuguese sweet bread go!

Another victim of the “refrigerated pastéis de nata” insult, this one wasn't just soggy but the crust actually tasted stale. I won't make the mistake of trying this product here again.