A Great Breakfast Sandwich at Kitten and the Bear

Kitten and the Bear
Location
: 1414 Dundas Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.kittenandthebear.com/

You wouldn’t think that Kitten and the Bear — an unassuming little bakery that specializes in scones — would serve one of the best breakfast sandwiches in the city, but hey, what do you know?  They do.

They’re actually one block over from the breakfast sandwich amazingness of Dad’s Breakfast & Coffee, and they serve a breakfast sandwich that’s pretty much just as good (but with substantially less hype).

Kitten and the Bear

There’s just the one breakfast sandwich on the menu, the Egg & Cheese on a Scone: “Fluffy egg and aged cheddar on a fresh herb scone.  Add peach & red pepper savoury jam or hot honey!”  I went with the jam, which they make in-house.

Everything here just works: the sharp, gooey cheddar; the silky egg; the nice contrasting sweet and savoury punch of the jam; and especially, the amazing scone.

Kitten and the Bear

I mean, the place specializes in the stuff, so I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that the scone is stellar, but it really is.  It’s delightfully buttery, with a nice crispy exterior, and an interior that really nails the fluffiness and substance that you want from a scone.

The quality of the egg, cheese, and jam is high enough that this would be a great sandwich even on lesser bread, but that scone really takes it over the top.

Chocolatey Amazingness at Blackbird Baking Co.

Chocolate cork at Blackbird Baking Co.
Location
: 172 Baldwin Street, Toronto
Website: https://blackbirdbakingco.com/

I’ve written about Blackbird several times (tl;dr — it’s great and you should go there), so my inclination is to just write a Quick Bite review about this. But the chocolate cork at Blackbird? It needs its own post. It’s too good to share space with anything else

Chocolate cork at Blackbird Baking Co.

It’s phenomenal. Legitimately one of the best pastries I’ve ever had. It’s kinda like a really great cakey brownie, but also stuffed with delicious chocolate mousse.

The chocolate flavour here is intense. If you like chocolate (or things that are delicious) then you owe it to yourself to try this.

Chocolate cork at Blackbird Baking Co.

I don’t have a whole lot more to say about this. But I feel very strongly that everyone needs to know how great it is.

Tasty Sandwiches at Dear Grain

Dear Grain
Location
: 48 Ossington Avenue, Toronto
Website: https://deargrain.com/

Mostly, Dear Grain is a bakery that sells some seriously tasty sourdough loaves.  But they also have a variety of sandwiches and pastries, and yeah, those are quite good, too.

Dear Grain

I had the roasted turkey sandwich (“brie, brown butter and chutney”), and it was very tasty.

Dear Grain

They toast the sandwich until the bread is crispy and the brie is melty, and the combo of that creamy, slightly nutty cheese and the meaty turkey works very well.  The chutney is cranberry-sauce-esque, which works for obvious reasons.  And, of course, the bread is great.  It’s a stellar sandwich.

Dear Grain

I also tried a sesame cookie; I found the texture to be a bit cakier than I normally want in a cookie, but it’s not too sweet and has a very pronounced roasted sesame seed flavour.  It’s quite good.

Amazing Cookies at Bakery Pompette

Bakery Pompette
Location
: 655 College Street, Toronto
Website: https://www.pompette.ca/bakery

I’ll admit that I hadn’t heard of Bakery Pompette prior to Toronto Life ranking them number four on their list of the best new cookies in the city.  Which is crazy, because based on how good the cookie is, I feel like everyone should be talking about this place.  You’ve all failed me.

Bakery Pompette

The pecan caramel cookie (“pecan chocolate chip cookies topped with coffee caramel and pecan praline”) is pure magic.  It’s basically a chocolate chip cookie, but greatly enhanced with the addition of pecans and the two sauces on top.

Bakery Pompette

It’s cookie perfection, with a great crispy/chewy texture, a generous amount of good-quality chocolate chips, and a nice nuttiness from the pecans.

Bakery Pompette

You’d think the caramel sauce on top would be overkill, but the pleasantly mild bitterness from the coffee does an amazing job of cutting through the cookie’s sweetness.

Every element here just works.  It’s a seriously, seriously good cookie.

Quick Bites: La Casa Dolce, The Fourth Man in the Fire, Petite Bouchée Patisserie

Chocolate chip cookie from La Casa Dolce
Chocolate chip cookie from La Casa Dolce

I certainly wasn’t in a rush to go back after my last visit to La Casa Dolce, but I was in the area and craving something sweet, so sure, why not?  I went with the chocolate chip cookie this time, because it’s basically impossible to mess that up.  That’s one of those things where even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good.  And this one: not bad!  Not great, certainly, but it had a good amount of decent quality chocolate chips (bittersweet, I think), a nice chewy texture, and it wasn’t too sweet.  It felt like something was missing, however (vanilla, maybe?), which held it back from being much better than pretty good, but I still enjoyed it.

Meatball sandwich from The Fourth Man in the Fire
Meatball sandwich from The Fourth Man in the Fire

I’ve written about the pizza from The Fourth Man in the Fire a couple of times on this blog, and in case you don’t feel like clicking on that link: it’s great.  I like it a lot.  So I decided to try their meatball sandwich this time (“Meatballs (Beef and Pork Mix), Povolone. Served on Fresh Baked to Order Bread”), and yeah, it’s good.  In particular, the flavourful, tender meatballs were actually pretty amazing, and the ultra-rich tomato sauce they come with is the stuff dreams are made of.  I want to bathe in the stuff.  Oddly, I was expecting the bread to be the highlight (I like the crust on their pizza quite a lot) and it wasn’t.  It got the job done, but I think it might have been slightly underbaked, with a mildly doughy consistency that I wasn’t crazy about.

Chocolate cake from Petite Bouchée Patisserie
Chocolate cake from Petite Bouchée Patisserie

I picked up a chocolate cake from this place after reading several references to it being the best in the city, and hey, wouldn’t you know it — it just might be.  The cake itself is delightfully tender and fluffy, and the rich and creamy frosting is crammed with a delicious, chocolately flavour.  It’s very sweet, but not in a way that feels overwhelming or cloying.  Immediately after eating it, we were all making plans to order another one.  So yeah, it’s quite good.