cinnamon – Michael Eats

A Delicious Brunch at Emma’s Country Kitchen

Published on May 23, 2026 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 810 Saint Clair Avenue West, Toronto
Website: https://www.emmascountrykitchen.com/

Emma’s Country Kitchen has been serving up brunch for a while. I’ve been wanting to check the place out since seeing it on a 2015 episode of You Gotta Eat Here, and yeah, they’re still around and kicking. Even more surprising: the place is still hopping. I showed up at about 10:00am on a Saturday, and it was a half hour wait to get in.

I tend not to go to brunch places all that often, because it’s all a bit boring, and it’s generally all stuff you can make at home relatively easily. But when it’s as good as it is here? Yeah, I can’t do that at home, and I doubt you can, either.

It’s worth braving the crowds. Everything here was stellar.

In particular, the cinnamon bun pancakes (“Stack of light and fluffy buttermilk pancakes swirled with caramelized brown sugar, butter and cinnamon. Served with whipped brown butter and real maple syrup”) might be their most well known dish (it was featured on that episode of You Gotta Eat here all those years ago), and for good reason.

Seriously, I think these might be the best pancakes I’ve ever had? They were nice and fluffy with just the right amount of density, they’ve got a nice tang from the buttermilk, and the caramelized brown sugar gives the pancakes a nice crispiness in spots and a delightful amount of sweetness. I didn’t even use the syrup on the side — the level of sweetness here was restrained, but perfect.

The brown butter on top gives it a nice creaminess and a mild salty pop that offsets the sweetness of the brown sugar. Good lord these were good. I could eat about a million of them.

I also tried the Breakwich (“Freshly baked buttermilk biscuit topped with over easy egg, melted cheese and choice of sage and onion sausage, house cured bacon or griddled tomato”) and yeah, that was stellar, too. You can choose your egg, cheese, and meat: I went with scrambled, spicy pimento cheese, and sausage.

The perfect biscuit was the highlight, but everything here was very, very good. In particular, that pimento cheese has a nice kick and a satisfying zippy flavour. I want this stuff on all my breakfast sandwiches from now on.

Finally, I tried the Emma’s BLT (“Freshly baked buttermilk biscuit, 2 pieces house cured bacon, fresh tomato, baby arugula and roasted garlic mayo”). You can get this with a biscuit, or a toasted rye bun. I went with the bun since I was already having the biscuit.

This was the least exciting of the dishes I tried, but still quite tasty. I’m pretty sure I’m going to dream about that thickly-cut house-cured bacon. It’s fantastic. But then everything here is fantastic, so why shouldn’t it be?

Choco Frosted Donut Blizzard and Cinnamon Toast Crunch Dipped Cone at Dairy Queen

Published on May 2, 2026May 17, 2026 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 5369 Dundas Street West, Etobicoke
Website: https://www.dairyqueen.com/en-ca/

Dairy Queen recently came out with a “Breakfast Collection,” which includes a Choco Frosted Donut Blizzard, a Fruity Pebbles Shake, and a Cinnamon Toast Crunch Dipped Cone.

Is a doughnut breakfast? I mean, I guess anything can be breakfast if want it to be, but if you’re regularly waking up and housing a doughnut or two, I’m not sure how many more years of eating breakfast (or just existing) you’ve got left.

But sure, for the sake of this exercise, let’s say a doughnut is breakfast, because that’s the one I tried. The Choco Frosted Donut Blizzard, as per Dairy Queen’s website: “Chocolate frosted donut pieces and DQ Signature Sprinkles are blended with our world-famous soft serve to Blizzard perfection.”

I actually liked this way more than I thought I would. I’m not sure if putting chopped up doughnuts into ice cream would even work (I feel like they’d get too hard and/or their flavour would be lost), but that’s not quite what they do here — instead, there are chewy, cookie-dough-like pieces that actually do a pretty great job of tasting doughnut-like enough that you know exactly what you’re eating.

The sprinkles don’t add much, but there are enough of those tasty doughnut bits to make this a thoroughly enjoyable Blizzard.

UPDATE: I went back and tried the Cinnamon Toast Crunch Dipped Cone (“First, we take our world-famous vanilla soft serve and dip it into a warm, rich cinnamon cereal-flavoured cone coating with crunchy cereal bits. To top it off, we add a generous dusting of sweet Cinnadust”). As usual with a dipped cone, the first bite was the best, but I enjoyed this. It has a pronounced cinnamon/sugar flavour, and does a respectable job of replicating the flavour of the classic cereal.

Greek Doughnuts at Mr. Puffs

Published on January 15, 2023January 15, 2023 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1425 Dundas Street East, Mississauga
Website: https://mrpuffs.com/

Mr. Puffs is a chain that specializes in fried doughnut holes — they’re basically Greek-style loukoumades, though the menu and website never uses that word, referring to them only as puffs.

The puffs come topped with various sauces and flavours; the woman behind the counter said that honey cinnamon and sugar cinnamon are the two most popular, so I got six of each (an order of 12, which comes out to about eight bucks, is the smallest you can get).

This location has just opened, so I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt and say that they’re still working out the kinks. This style of doughnut is generally soaked in syrup, but the syrup was just drizzled on here, resulting in a final product that was just barely sweet (and the sugar cinnamon variety had the same issue). The doughnuts mostly tasted of the oil they were fried in.

I also think that the oil might have been a bit too hot, because the exterior was aggressively crispy (I could barely put a fork through it) and the interior was soft and gummy.

Still, despite the issues, it’s a fun concept — assuming they work out the kinks, it’s definitely worth checking out.

Cinnamon Roll Centres Blizzard at Dairy Queen

Published on October 2, 2022 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 325 Central Parkway West, Mississauga
Website: https://www.dairyqueen.com/

Dairy Queen is currently serving their Fall menu of Blizzards, which means the Pumpkin Pie Blizzard (a.k.a. the king of Blizzards) is back. I probably should have ordered that, but how could I resist something called a Cinnamon Roll Centres Blizzard?? You’re going to take the best part of a cinnamon roll and mix it with ice cream??? Yes please, give me a million of those please.

Dairy Queen describes this as “soft cinnamon roll pieces and brown butter cinnamon topping blended with our world-famous vanilla soft serve,” and alas, it’s not nearly as great as you’d hope.

They mix some cinnamon flavour right in with the soft serve, which is nice, but the “soft” cinnamon roll pieces are actually not soft at all (they have more of a chewy cookie consistency), and taste absolutely nothing like the sweet, gooey, delicious middle of a cinnamon roll. They’re just kinda dry and chewy, and while they’re cinnamony, they also have an odd flavour that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

I didn’t hate eating it, I guess, but the notion that this has anything to do with a cinnamon roll honestly feels like false advertising. Can we sue Dairy Queen? I feel like we should sue Dairy Queen.

Quick Bites: Churnt Up, Nord Lyon, Canada’s Wonderland

Published on July 27, 2022 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Cinnamon Toast Crunch ice cream at Churnt Up

I decided recently that if I eat something I don’t particularly enjoy, I’m not going to write all that much about it — I think there’s enough negativity in the world, and I’d rather spend my energy focusing on stuff I like rather than stuff I don’t. That being said, I’ll say that Cinnamon Toast Crunch is a great flavour for ice cream, and I’ll leave it at that.

Strawberry croissant at Nord Lyon

The strawberry croissant at Nord Lyon is named after the bakery; it’s always a safe bet to order a restaurant’s namesake dish, and in this case, the croissant has a nice buttery flavour and a healthy amount of sweet strawberry jam. It was pretty stale when I tried it, but maybe you’ll have better luck?

Funnel cake at Canada’s Wonderland

It turns out that Canada’s Wonderland is actually pretty boring for food — at least half of the eateries are locations of Pizza Pizza or Subway, and the rest all serve stuff like burgers and chicken strips, with almost none of the over-the-top carnival-style fun you might expect. But! They still serve funnel cakes — topped with soft serve and a chunky strawberry sauce — and they’re just as good as you remember. No… better. If there’s a better combo than fresh fried dough, creamy ice cream, and sweet strawberry sauce, I’d like to hear about it.