Dutch Delicious

A great heading for this post, and a great name for a bakery; it was also the theme for my Mother's Day lunch. Dutch Delicious (near the traffic circle at 13232 118 Avenue) has become a family favourite. And I'm not saying this happened to me... but don't call the bakery at midnight assuming their voicemail will give the hours, because then the baker will pick up resulting in a pretty awkward situation.

Family meals are always a struggle, dealing with the different preferences of everyone. I decided to stick with sandwiches, but do them a little differently. My family is Danish so we're big on the open-face sandwich, and I also love the breakfast spreads you see in the Netherlands (the picture to the left = best breakfast ever). I tried to combine the two, and put out a platter of different breads (whole wheat Dutch and light rye), deli meats (porchetta, capicolla, peppercorn turkey, and sausage), hard-boiled eggs, and cheeses (medium gouda and mozzarella) from Dutch Delicious, the Italian Centre Shop, and Sobey's. I set out little bowls with dijon and wholegrain mustards, and also had crudités with dip. For a Mother's Day drink I made Pimm's Cocktail filled with fruit (with a virgin version for Court made with strawberry juice & sparkling water). Basically, this was just a fancied-up version of our normal weekend lunches. For dessert I made Brown Sugar Cheesecake and Court brought over some of her Vanilla Cupcakes for those crazies who don't eat cheesecake.

Now, back to the bakery. They have a small deli and cheese section and the rest is breads, buns, cookies, and small pastries. They also have a cute little table where you can eat in if you like, and I saw a few people doing that when I was there at around 9:30 on Saturday morning. It's best to get there early, as the best picks are gone by lunchtime. They make delicious almond cookies and almond tarts - so delicious that I haven't branched out much from those. If you like ginger the ginger tarts are also very good. They also have a very large selection of imported grocery items from the Netherlands, including my favourite: chocolate sprinkles (chocoladehagel - as seen in the picture). I also buy my dutch rusks there (I'm addicted) as well as good pickled beets and a lot of other harder to find foods if you're interested in Dutch, Scandinavian, or German cuisine. I still don't know the hours, but I do know that they're closed on Sundays.