When I was younger, I would go to New York every summer to visit my mom’s side of the family. Every trip followed the same routine: seeing the New York Yankees, going to the Museum of Natural History — where I would eat a fluorescent blue cookie in the shape of Pluto — and eating other made-in-New-York-specialities such as bagels, pizzas, and cannoli.
However, upon returning to Toronto, none of this food tasted the same. Although Toronto does its own unique take on the bagels and the pizzas, I’ve experienced nothing but constant disappointment when it comes to cannoli.
Recently, I went on a trek to find a cannoli in Toronto that tastes similar to the New York cannoli. I tried cannoli from four different bakeries, and this is what I found:
Sicilian Sidewalk Café
Sicilian Sidewalk Café’s cannoli are made fresh to order and at $2.00 for one, they’re on the cheaper end of the cannoli spectrum. Compared to a New York cannoli, the filling was not as thick, but it did have a nice taste. The shell was bland, but due to the made-to-order nature of Sidewalk Café’s cannoli, it wasn’t soggy. In the end, the cannoli fell short and it clearly was not a sufficient replacement to my NY cannoli
Dolce Gelato
For $2.50, I purchased the smallest cannoli of the four. It had chocolate sauce drizzled on it — not traditional. The filling of the cannoli was thick, as the New York ones are, but it tasted like there was something artificial in there — something that did not belong in a cannoli. Since it was premade, the shell was on the softer side. Dolce Gelato’s would have been the closest thing Toronto had to a New York cannoli — if only it came without the chocolate drizzle and artificial taste.
Rivera Bakery
The cannoli here was the most expensive at $3.00, and they were of average size. I believe the cannoli might have been left over from the day before because the middle was quite runny and the mixture was not very uniform. The shell, too, was disappointing; it was thick and quite hard. In short, it was my least favourite (and the most expensive) cannoli on the list.
Loblaws
I was not planning on buying cannoli at Loblaws but while I was there, I noticed that they sold freshly filled cannoli for $2.50. Like the Riviera cannoli, the middle was a bit runny; however, it tasted much better than the other cannoli I tried. Despite the thin and slightly oily shell, it was by far the best tasting one. Although the best, it was not the same as a New York cannoli.
Although none of the cannoli were the same as a New York one, what was most surprising was that the Little Italy cannoli was disappointing and that the best cannoli came from the Loblaws bakery. It managed to do to cannoli what Toronto bagels and pizza do; it gave me a version of a cannoli very different from one from New York yet also quite delicious in its own right.
