A Delicious Treat at Eight Cookies

Eight Cookies
Location
: 983 Dovercourt Road, Toronto
Website: https://eightcookies.ca/

I’ll admit that I didn’t have the highest of hopes for Eight Cookies.  They serve big fat chunky boys, like at Crumbl or Andrea’s, which I’m generally not crazy about.  I find this type of cookie to be one-note soft, and I’m not a big fan of how underbaked they tend to be.

Eight Cookies

Imagine my surprise, then, when I found that the cookie here was not underbaked at all, but still managed to be delightfully soft and chewy, with a nice level of crispiness on its exterior.

Like at Crumbl, they have a rotating menu of eight different cookies, with several of them featuring various toppings and icing.  I like to go simple when I’m first trying a place, so I went with the milk chocolate and sea salt: “A delightful balance of sweet and savory, these soft cookies feature rich milk chocolate chunks, finished with a sprinkle of sea salt for that perfect touch of flavor.”

Eight Cookies

It’s a top-notch cookie; it’s buttery and rich without being overly greasy, the chocolate is obviously very good quality, and the cookie itself is quite tasty.  It’s a bit sweet for me, however — I think a darker chocolate would be perfect here, but then I tend to like my dessert to lean a bit less sugary.

Eight Cookies

Still, the salt does a solid job of (mostly) balancing out the cookie’s sweetness, and other than that, I liked this a whole lot.

A Creamy Dessert at 6 Cloud

6 Cloud
Location
: 3236 Yonge Street, Toronto
Website: https://www.6cloud.co/

6 Cloud serves what they describe as “Cold Souffle Cream Sandwiches.”  Basically, it’s Japanese-style souffle pancakes stuffed with a whole bunch of whipped cream.

I like souffle pancakes.  I like whipped cream.  So yes please, cram the two things together.  I’m into this.

6 Cloud

And yeah, it’s good.  They have several flavours, but I went with the most basic, Hokkaido Milk: “Our signature fluffy souffle stuffed with rich, creamy Hokkaido milk cream.”

6 Cloud

It’s very tasty.  It’s actually pretty interesting — the level of sweetness is a lot more restrained than you’d expect, and there are no other flavours to distract from the cream.  There’s a bit of egginess from the pancake, but otherwise, this is all about the flavour of the dairy.  It’s satisfying.

6 Cloud

It’s also less messy than you’d think.  I was afraid that all the cream would immediately squish out of the sides when I ate it, but the pancakes are soft enough and the cream is dense enough that it totally holds together.

A Delicious Pastry at Cho-Kwok-Lat

Cho-Kwok-Lat
Location
: 79 Wellesley Street East, Toronto
Website: https://chokwoklat.com/

I went to the original location of Cho-Kwok-Lat in Markham a few years ago and found it to be thoroughly delicious.  They opened a second location downtown last year, and yeah — they’re still cranking out some really stellar pastries.

Cho-Kwok-Lat

Sometimes ordering at a bakery is a real struggle, because everything looks so good.  That was definitely the case here.  I wanted to try everything.

Cho-Kwok-Lat

I eventually settled on the cherry berry pistachio pillow, which is filled with a decent amount of tasty jam and gooey pistachio cream in a croissant-like base.

Cho-Kwok-Lat

I think that this style of croissant — with the dozens of tiny lines on top that crackle into crispy strips when you eat it — looks stunning, but is less satisfying to eat than the traditional, flatter presentation.  Still, they do a great version of it here, with a great contrast between the crispy shell and the fluffy interior.

Cho-Kwok-Lat

And the combo of the fruity base and the nutty pistachio cream works very, very well.  It’s delicious.

Like when I visited the Markham location, they heated it up a bit first, which I think is such a great idea — it livens up the pastry and amps up the external crispiness, which definitely enhances things.

Tasty Pastries at Barburu

Barburu
Location
: 1000 Burnhamthorpe Road West, Mississauga
Website: https://www.instagram.com/barburu_bakery/

Barburu is a delightful little bakery and coffee shop in Yuan Ming Supermarket’s food court.  They mostly specialize in various filled croissants, though they have a few other types of pastries as well.

Barburu

I went with the pistachio croissant, and it was quite satisfying.  In particular, it’s got a very generous amount of pistachio filling that has a tasty pistachio flavour.

I know it seems odd to complement pistachio filling for tasting like pistachio, but the pistachio flavour just isn’t quite there in a lot of croissants like this.  This one definitely doesn’t have that problem.

Barburu

There’s also a sweet, creamy pistachio spread on top of the pistachio filling, which is a nice touch.

Barburu

My only real issue here is that the layer of croissant surrounding the filling is quite thin.  It’s got a nice crispy exterior and the whole thing is certainly very satisfying, but I would have liked a bit more croissant and a bit less filling.  The ratio is off.  It’s tasty enough that I’m not going to complain too much, but it’s still a shame.

Tasty Buns at Blooming Garden Dessert House

Blooming Garden Dessert House
Location
: 1177 Central Parkway West, Mississauga
Website: None

Look, I’m a simple man with simple pleasures.  Put a red bean bun in front of me, and I’m going to eat and enjoy that bun.  I’ve had a lot of red bean buns of varying levels of quality, but I’ve never had one I’ve outright disliked.

Blooming Garden Dessert House

I also enjoy desserts that are on the less sweet side of things, so when I saw that Blooming Garden Dessert House serves something that they call a “less sugar red bean pineapple bun,” I was all over that.

Blooming Garden Dessert House

I know that I just said that I’d enjoy literally any red bean bun that you put in front of me, so maybe that kills my credibility a bit, but this was a particularly good one.  I really, really enjoyed it.

I thought it might be barely sweet at all, but while the sugar level is definitely on the more restrained side of things, it’s plenty sweet.  The sweetness level is about on par with the better red bean buns that I’ve had, so advertising this as “less sugar” is probably overkill.

Blooming Garden Dessert House

Everything here is just right, from the satisfying chunkiness of the filling, to the ultra fresh and chewy bread, to the perfectly crispy topping.  It’s legitimately one of the better versions of this that I’ve had in a while.