Baked Goods
Red Rose Patisserie
I asked my friend Sona to take us to her favourite Persian bakery in Toronto, so she meets us (picks us up... in a car!) at Finch station and drives us the short distance to Red Rose Patisserie. We arrive really hungry because one of us (who I'll call "Shortbread") gets lost on her way uptown and delays us.
Yonge and Finch is exemplary of a great city, a curious mix of Persian and Korean restaurants and business. Inside Red Rose, customers speak Farsi and snack on freshly baked Persian sweets or take away boxes of imported Iranian chocolates and crystallized sugar to dissolve in coffee and tea. There are also huge containers of nuts and dried fruit available in bulk, a nice extra that I sincerely wish was available in every bakery I visit.
The display case is full to the brim and consists of shirini tar, "moist sweets" with custard and cream, and shirini khoshk "dry sweets" that mostly resemble little cookies. Shortbread goes straight for the cream puff ($3.00), a fresh piece of pastry stuffed with pure whip cream. Alyssa chooses a Neapolitan ($3.50), layered flake pastry with custard, and Sona has her favourite, rollete, a pastry roll with cream and pistachio. (Pistachio abounds inside Red Rose.)
Everything arrives at our table nicely displayed and dusted with icing sugar. I finish off everyone else's dessert and sample the plate of shirini khoshk that Sona chose. My favourite is a soft, moist cookie wrapped around ground figs, very fresh and very sweet. Sona tells me to try a cookie with poppy seeds. "It's interesting," she says. It is very light and practically disintegrates in my mouth.
The most interesting dessert we try is the faloodeh ($3.99), thin starch noodles in rose water sorbet, definitely a new taste for me. (Red Rose also offers saffron ice cream. Given the chance, I would have chosen this instead.) It's really sweet and refreshing, and arrives at the table with bottles of cherry and lemon syrup to pour over top of it. I like the taste of the faloodeh plain, but it looks so nice with the cherry syrup that Alyssa dumps some on anyhow.
Photos by Alyssa Bistonath
Discussion
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This Bakery goes lengths to use originality , the cookies are to die for.............
You obviously have zero class if you want to take a "box of cookies" you purchased to your table. You order treats you want to enjoy, and take the ones in a BOX home. You don't even know how to spell! I've been a customer for many years, and the cutlery is already set at the tables (at zaffron).
P.S This is a beautiful blog, great pictures. I always have a great experience there!
As an iranian-canadian, I'm proud that we have such great places in Toronto, without them, there would be very little places without cutlery.
this was one of the first persian landmarks in toronto next to mr kabob at there old location . I'm sure if they changed there coffee supplier they would do bette. but i go there for ice cream and cookies and they never disappointed .
My name is isabella and i am 9 years old. Every year my mom order my Birthday cake from "Red Rose" all these years (9 years) Ms. Fariba jon is taking good care of my cake with beautiful design and teast and the staff are very friendly and helpful as wel. Every year on my Birthday I will get lots of complements from my birthday cake because all the kids and parents try it and they love it and at the end of the party they want some to take home :).Thank you Red Rose to make my speciall day so enjoyable... cheers
garbage garbage garbage.....................
DISGUSTING..................