Tag: coffee

Amazing Cookies at Bakery Pompette

Published on by Michael NusairLeave a comment

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.

Extremely Spicy Noodles at Momofuku Noodle Bar

Published on by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Momofuku Noodle BarLocation: 190 University Avenue, Toronto
Website: https://noodlebar-toronto.momofuku.com/

After my recent disappointment with Canada’s so-called hottest burrito, I found myself craving extreme spice.  That burrito was a complete buzzkill.  You can’t get me all hyped up to eat something stupidly spicy and then serve a regular burrito with a little bit of hot sauce on the side.  That’s not cool.

The Very Extremely Spicy Noodles at Momofuku Noodle Bar was just what the doctor ordered.

I knew it would be; I tried it a couple of years ago and found it to be quite tasty, but spicy enough that I needed a year or two to want to eat it again (especially when there’s so much good stuff on the menu at the Noodle Bar).  But enough time had passed for me to go for round two.

Momofuku Noodle Bar

It is definitely as advertised.  It’s extremely spicy, but not so ridiculous that it’s inedible.  It’s a very, very spicy dish, but it’s clearly designed to be delicious, and not to be something you’d only eat on a dare.

It’s an explosion of flavours; it’s spicy, garlicky, fermented, and funky.  It also has that numbing heat from Sichuan peppercorns, which helps to balance out the extreme spice.

The explosive sauce and the chewy noodles are a great combo.  Assuming you have a decent tolerance for spice, it’s seriously delicious (and the glass of soy milk that comes on the side does a decent job of cooling down the inferno in your mouth).

Momofuku Noodle Bar

I also tried the hot cocoa soft serve, which the menu describes as “chocolate, coffee, ancho, cocoa cookie”; this wasn’t quite as good.

I think the main issue is that it’s clearly mislabeled — it tastes way more strongly of coffee than chocolate.  It’s basically coffee ice cream with mild chocolatey undertones, and a surprisingly restrained level of sweetness.

I don’t particularly like coffee, but if you do I’m sure you’ll find this delicious.  The ice cream has an amazingly smooth and creamy consistency, but the coffee flavour was way too intense for me.