District Café & Bakery
Cinnamon Roll with a Side of Icing
Blueberry Almond Muffin
Molasses Cookie
Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie
Pain au Chocolate
Warm Rice Pudding with Coconut Milk, Orange Zest, Sauteed Strawberries, Blueberries
Located near the Capitol, where trees still-hung with Christmas lights greet early morning commuters to a traffic jam and prohibitive parking rules, District Café & Bakery was an easy choice for breakfast after its sister Little Brick provided some excellent French Toast and Rice Pudding just 21-hours prior, the baking here much improved compared to the Café and General Store concept, though the office building space lacks the charm.
Owned by Nate Box, both his cadre of local restaurants and the floorplan of District Café & Bakery recently expanded, it was with several suits enjoying Lattes along with the daily news that I entered the lengthy space with a long counter of Pastries and to-go choices, dine-in orders placed through a hirsuit young man in flannel before taking a seat, the five baked goods quickly placed before me with another comforting bowl of warm Rice Pudding soon to arrive, this time with fresh Berries as opposed to Little Brick’s Apples.
Seeing cookies fresh from baking sheets being placed on shelves as I’d waited in line, and thus happy to give them a chance even though the Oatmeal-Chocolate Chip failed to wow before, this version was slightly improved by way of more Chips and a softer center, the richly spiced Molasses round far more successful as it offered a whole lot of stretch beneath the exterior lightly dusted in granulated Sugar.
Generally pleased by a Pain au Chocolate, the still-warm center gooey while laminated layers packed a lot of butter but not much flaky crunch, District’s Blueberry Almond Muffin trumped the Scone from Little Brick in terms of texture expectations, though it was still slight on Fruit, while the Cinnamon Roll served with a sidecar of frosting featured a moist Brioche without a lot of intrinsic sweetness, thus allowing diners to customize it to their liking.
www.districtcafe.ca
