dessert – Page 4 – Michael Eats

Quick Bites: Craig’s Cookies, Pink Ice Cream, Barbershop Patisserie

Published on November 25, 2025 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Dark chocolate chip cookie from Craig’s Cookies

I’ve been to Craig’s Cookies a few times since initially trying them back in 2018*, and I’ll admit that I’m not quite as crazy about the place as I was then; since then, I think the flavour of the cookies has diminished somewhat, and the sweetness level has skyrocketed. They’re very, very sweet cookies. Still, they’re far from bad, and on this particular visit I noticed that they have a dark chocolate chip cookie (made with chocolate chips from Soul Chocolate), which is clearly the way to go. The slight bitterness and restrained sweetness of the dark chocolate helps to balance out the sweetness of the cookie itself, and being from Soul, the quality of the chocolate is stellar. It’s a tasty cookie.

*It’s funny to look at my complaint in that review about there being almost no bakeries that specialize in cookies in the GTA. What a difference a few years makes — there’s gotta be like a couple dozen cookie shops in the GTA now, if not more.

Tahini walnut and pistachio ice cream from Pink Ice Cream

Pink Ice Cream is very well regarded and has some unique flavours, so I was pretty excited to try it. I had two flavours: tahini walnut (though I think they might have given me banana peanut instead, because the ice cream had an unripe banana flavour and no tahini that I could detect) and pistachio, and neither flavour jumped out at me as being particularly enjoyable. But people really do seem to love this place (it’s sitting at an impressive 4.9 out of 5 on Google as I write this), so it’s very possible that I’m wrong or they were just having a bad day (it also didn’t help that the freezer was too cold, resulting in very, very hard ice cream). Oh well. You can’t win ’em all!

Holiday cookie from Barbershop Patisserie

You know how I mentioned above that I’m not crazy about the cookies at Craig’s Cookies? Well, you know what cookie I am crazy about? The holiday cookie from Barbershop Patisserie. This has a chunk of chocolate in the middle (along with pistachios and cranberries), but mostly, isn’t particularly crammed with stuff. But the cookie itself is so amazingly good that it really doesn’t matter. Seriously: every cookie shop in Toronto needs to learn from this place. The cookie here has a great flavour, it isn’t too sweet, and it’s got the perfect balance of lightly crispy exterior and chewy interior. It’s cookie perfection.

More Delicious Doughnuts at Dipped Donuts

Published on November 20, 2025 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1374 Queen Street West, Toronto
Website: https://dippeddonuts.ca/

Dipped Donuts serves some of the best doughnuts in the city. The best? Quite possibly! I’ve written about their Kensington Market location a few times, and I’m happy to say that their second location on Queen is just as good (UPDATE: since I initially wrote this, this location has closed (I have a bit of a backlog), but their initial location in Kensington Market is still alive and kicking).

As usual, every flavour looked extremely delicious. Picking just one was an ordeal.

I went with peach & ginger jelly, which is an intriguing combo that worked out even better than I was expecting.

It’s a great doughnut. The filling is sweet, but with a mild tartness that helps to balance things out. And the ginger is present enough to give the filling some character and a mild bite, but subtle enough to not overwhelm. I’ve had some ginger desserts where the ginger is too aggressive, and let me tell you: it’s a bummer to eat.

And, of course, the doughnut itself is perfect, with a great flavour and just the right balance of chewiness and fluffiness.

Baked Salted Caramel Pie at McDonald’s

Published on November 16, 2025November 16, 2025 by Michael Nusair2 Comments

Location: 1500 Dundas Street East, Mississauga (inside Walmart)
Website: https://www.mcdonalds.com/ca/en-ca.html

I’m going to try not to spend this entire review complaining about how McDonald’s used to fry their pies, resulting in a golden, satisfyingly crispy exterior, and now bakes them instead.

Remember how good the fried pies used to taste? No, you don’t, because the switchover happened back in 1992, and you weren’t even born when it happened?? That’s extremely upsetting to me, but yeah, fair enough.

Well, the fried pies were good. And you don’t need a time machine to discover this for yourself — basically every other country in the world still serves their McDonald’s pies fried, and it’s a million times better. Why we still have to put up with gummy, tasteless crusts despite the fact that the low-fat diet craze that spawned this change has been gone for decades is a mystery that will eternally haunt me.

Oh, did I say I wasn’t going to spend this entire review complaining about the crust? Well, I lied. Otherwise, this is basically fine — it tastes like an apple pie that’s all goo, no apples, with the slight hit of salt making it a bit more interesting. But seriously: why are we all putting up with the fact that the pies at McDonald’s are terrible when they don’t have to be???

Quality Eclairs at The Happy Chocco

Published on October 23, 2025 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 100 City Centre Drive (inside The Food District at Square One)
Website: https://www.thehappychocco.ca/

I’ll admit that I was a bit skeptical of The Happy Chocco. They always have a million eclairs on offer, and they never seem to be particularly busy. And I’m like, are these all fresh? Because it seems like they won’t all be fresh. There’s nothing sadder than a stale eclair with soggy pastry.

Well, I just went with two other people, and we all tried different eclairs and found them to be quite fresh (and quite delicious!) so I’m happy to say that I was wrong.

I went with the Dubai chocolate eclair: “classic eclair filled with pistachio pastry cream and Belgian milk chocolate dip with roasted kataifi.”

I really enjoyed this. The choux pastry had a great texture and was clearly not stale at all, the pistachio pastry cream was creamy and delicious (if a bit light on the nutty flavour), there was a decent layer of good-quality chocolate on top, and the roasted kataifi added a nice crispy texture. It’s a quality eclair.

Tasty Pastries at Bartholomew Bakery

Published on September 29, 2025 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 467 Edgeley Boulevard, Vaughan
Website: https://www.bartholomewbakery.com/

Bartholomew Bakery does well. I showed up early on a Saturday afternoon and the place was absolutely packed, with a line out the door and a huge crowd inside. I almost left when I saw how busy it was, but there’s something about a line for food that calls out to me. What do those people know that I don’t?? I need to find out.

Anyway, it didn’t take much longer than 15 minutes to get to the front of the line, so it wasn’t too bad.

Bartholomew specializes in various croissants, along with sourdough bread. I got a pistachio croissant along with a loaf of sliced sourdough.

I neglected to take a photo of the bread, which is a shame because that was probably the highlight. All they had when I visited was the honey oat; I almost didn’t order this, because I was afraid it would be too sweet, but I’m glad I did. It is indeed a bit too sweet, but it’s nicely balanced out by the tang of the sourdough. The bread is dense, but not overly so, with a satisfying level of heft and chewiness. It’s a solid loaf of bread.

The pistachio croissant was quite good, but not on the level of the bread.

The pistachio filling had an eggy flavour that I wasn’t particularly crazy about, but otherwise had a great level of sweetness and was absolutely crammed with pistachio flavour. I wish they weren’t so generous with it, though; there’s just way, way too much of it, and it completely overwhelms the croissant itself. I think it was a good-quality croissant (albeit slightly lacking in its crisp-factor), but the deluge of pistachio filling makes it impossible to tell.