Location: 31 Main Street North, Markham
Website: https://chokwoklat.com/

There are a whole bunch of really good bakeries doing fancy French desserts in the GTA, so if you want to stand out, you’d better be really good.

Cho-Kwok-Lat stands out.

They have two display counters; one with tasty looking croissants, and the other with fancy cakes.  I wanted to eat everything in both displays immediately.  The woman behind the counter said that the chocolate rum almond croissant is their most popular, so I figured that was probably a good choice.

It’s immediately clear why it’s so popular.  It’s basically like an almond croissant and a pain au chocolate had a baby, and it’s just the absolute best.  The combination of the tasty almond paste and the great quality chocolate is so good, and the croissant itself is buttery, flaky, and perfect.  I was worried that it might taste overly boozy, but if “rum” weren’t in its name, I don’t think I would have known it was there.

The woman behind the counter heated it up for me, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen with a croissant like this before, but which is clearly the way to go.  The croissant was just barely warm, but it had been heated up enough to really emphasize the pasty’s exterior crisp-factor, and to make the chocolate nice and gooey.  Good stuff.