THE OTHER LEBOWSKI
Searching for the perfect wedding cake can be a series of ups & downs, strikes and gutters......
With a venue, band, and guest list all but locked up for our 2020 ceremony, the next item on the agenda was to nail down a bakery. My fiancée and I came here for a cake tasting on 9/21/19, having made an appointment for 10am.
This European bakery is located on Milwaukee Ave in Niles, just north of Oakton. It's in a strip mall on the west side of the street, and parking can be a bit difficult. Oak Mill has a wide assortment of cookies, breads and small tartlets inside glass display cases, some of which are just beautiful.
Upon arriving on-time (a rarity for me, but necessary given the importance of the situation), we were asked to wait at a table. A few minutes turned into 10, which grew to 20 minutes.....then 30. Halfway through, we were asked to move to another table as some other wedding couple pulled rank on us. Okay, rude.
The actual cake tasting was $25 for what amounts to a few forkfuls. We sampled a French custard, lemon curd, and raspberry preserves with a few different frostings. Bill helped us, but he was pulled away several times to help with other customers. There were a lot of interruptions on top of a late start.
With our hearts set on a 'tres leches' (three milks cake), we requested a small sample and were told it wasn't possible. We could only place an order for an *entire* $30 cake, since not even a small tester slice was available. My gut was telling me to walk away; I would never buy a car before test driving it first.
In a total leap-of-faith move, we ordered their interpretation of a 'tres leches' and picked it up a week later. I should've known something was screwy when they showed us a picture of it covered in chocolate and we had to request it be left off......like it should be to begin with?
As it turns out, they outsourced this project to another bakery who thought it'd be perfectly fine to soak the cake in Kahlúa. Not only is this not one of the "three milks", this is a coffee liquor. Not. Even. Close. The cake received 4 thumbs-down; 2 from both the prospective groom and bride-to-be.
* TL;DR *
White Russians make a great beverage; Eric S has been known to ask for another Caucasian. Those boozy flavors are great when served over ice in an Old Fashioned glass, but any recipe calling for you to soak a whole cake in it is a very unwelcome deviation.
I should've listened to my instincts and not ordered a Mexican special occasion cake from a Polish bakery. As a traditional tres leches, it was a disaster and now we're stuck with the rest of it. It felt like opening a briefcase you think is filled with ransom money, and instead getting Walter Sobchak's dirty undies.
That's bad enough, but they made us sit around for THIRTY minutes. Why even bother making an appointment with us? We've got lots of stuff going on -- especially on a Saturday in September -- having us sit for half an hour is really inconsiderate and tells us that A) our time isn't important B) our business doesn't matter to them.
Needless to say, we're dropping Oak Mill like a 16lb bowling ball and finding some place else to handle our wedding affairs. His Dudeness is not pleased. You might as well have peed on his fuckin' rug.
No, I don't recommend. This aggression will not stand, man! read more