Meinhardt Fine Foods – Cakes/Desserts

Restaurant: Meinhardt Fine Foods
Cuisine: Bakery/Desserts/Pastries/Deli/Sandwiches
Last visited: September 3, 2010
Location: Vancouver, BC (Fairview/South Granville)
Address: 3002 Granville Street
Price Range: $10-20

1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!

Desserts: 4
Service: n/a
Ambiance: n/a
Overall: n/a
Additional comments:

• Fine foods grocery store/Cafe
• On site bakery
• Made from scratch desserts
• Seasonal/local/organic
• Gift boxes
• Individual/whole cakes
• Pastries/cookies
• Sandwiches/Deli/Salads
• Catering available
• Great for picnics
  

**Recommendations: Lemon Meringue Tart, Coconut Cake

Meinhardt Fine Foods is popularly known as a gourmet grocery store in Vancouver, BC. However they have a cafe next door, an in house bakery and delicatessen as well. It’s a great place my friends and I like to pick up desserts whenever someone is hosting a dinner. Actually, to be exact, it’s more like whenever I host a dinner party people like to bring desserts from Meinhardt. They offer gourmet desserts in individual servings, just like Kreation Artisan Bakery or Ganache Patisserie. We like to share a variety of desserts so we get to try some of everything. It’s more affordable than these 2, but it’s also not as finely executed or creative. However it’s not as traditional and rustic as Uprising Breads Bakery and most of the desserts they offer is usually a solid delivery for the price.

On the table:

Pear Almond Tart – 3.5/6

• About $3.50-5
• I love pear and almond tarts, but I’ve been really spoiled by amazing ones that my standard is really high for them. My favourite pear almond tarts are from Thomas Haas Fine Chocolates & Patisserie or Saint Honore Bakery thus far.
• This one was good and it had half a pear that was poached nice and soft, but I wish it had more almond flavour to it. I know they used almonds in the crust, but I would have wanted almond slivers on top as well.

**Lemon Meringue Tart – 5/6

• About $3.50-5
• I really enjoyed this lemon tart! It was delicious, and I’m not even a huge fan of lemon tarts. I do like them though and this one has got me craving them.
• The lemon curd was a great balance of tart and sweet and it was nice and creamy without being too rich. I loved the soft whipped meringue on top. It was almost like a toasted marshmallow, it was very light and not too sweet at all. It was the perfect topper and complement to the tart lemon filling.

Carrot Cake – 3/6

• About $3.50-5
• This carrot cake also had coconut in it and it was topped with cream cheese frosting and a walnut. The carrot cake itself was quite good, with a hint of cinnamon, but it seemed more like a muffin than a cake to me. It was a bit dense but I could see lots of carrot throughout and it was still very moist.
• I wasn’t a fan of the frosting though and it was a bit overwhelming. It wasn’t cheesy in flavour and it wasn’t that sweet either, it was a bit mysterious and it just needed a fluffier texture or better flavour.
• I like the carrot cake at Creme de la Crumb better, but my ultimate favourite is the one from Life Cafe Organic Restaurant & Bar.

Chocolate Mousse Cake – 3.5/6

• About $3.50-5
• This was a very y delicious chocolate mousse cake with chocolate ganache. It was fluffy, creamy, sweet, and bitter, however I had just had the Chocolate Mousse Pyramid and the Chocolate Mousse Hazelnut Dome from Cake Art the day before and those were hard to beat!
• I wasn’t a fan of the pearls on top. I usually love those, but these ones were a bit mushy and taste like stale cereal with not much flavour.

Chocolate Bread Pudding – 3.5/6

• About $3.50-5
• I’ve had this bread pudding before and I used to like it more, but now I find it a bit too dense and I prefer my bread puddings more moist and almost creamy (more on the pudding side, served in a bowl).
• This one was very dense and chunky and not as moist as I know it could have been. I highly recommend heating it up and serving it with ice cream, it’s so much better!
• There’s chunks of chocolate pieces throughout, but they kind of just stick to your teeth because you need to chew them. In the end I still like the bread pudding from… White Spot! However I also think bread pudding is one of those desserts that are best when home made.
• Coconut Cake

[geotag]