dessert – Page 46 – Michael Eats

Quality Soft Serve at Hollywood Cone

Published on July 9, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1167 Queen Street West, Toronto
Website: http://hollywoodcone.com/

Hollywood Cone is basically a superior version of Sweet Jesus — they have a similar selection of social-media-friendly cones, along with other Instagram-bait creations like elaborate milkshakes topped with entire doughnuts or slices of pie.

The quality of the ice cream itself is a solid upgrade over Sweet Jesus. And yet the place seems to be struggling to attract customers — go figure. On this particular day, I was actually intending to get a scoop from Bang Bang, but the line-up was intense, even by their standards. Meanwhile, Hollywood Cone (which is just a few blocks away) was a ghost town.

I ordered the Salted Caramel Skor (well, technically I ordered something else and they gave me the wrong thing — but I couldn’t be bothered to correct them), which comes topped with Skor bits, salted caramel sauce, and a chocolate drizzle.

It’s not bad at all. The sauces were middle-of-the-road, but the real attraction here is the ice cream. It’s super creamy and rich, and it lacks the artificial sweetness that you find in lesser soft serve. It’s really, really good.

Like at Sweet Jesus, their creations are designed to be Instagram-friendly cones instead of the sundaes they’re clearly meant to be, so the toppings run out pretty quickly. But unlike at Sweet Jesus, the quality of the ice cream is so good that you don’t particularly mind.

It’s odd that the place isn’t doing better than it is, though the aforementioned service issues don’t help, nor does the fact that the place is weirdly dirty and dark, with an atmosphere that feels more like a dive bar than an ice cream shop.

Interesting Soft Serve at Milkcow Cafe

Published on July 3, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 2651 Yonge Street, Toronto
Website: https://milkcowcafe.ca/

Milkcow Cafe is a South Korean soft serve chain — a concept which, thanks to Kiss the Tiramisu, now fills me with horror. I actually have a great deal of fondness for South Korea, but the ice cream at Kiss the Tiramisu was so profoundly awful that it made me lose a little bit of respect for the whole country. Just the absolute worst.

Thankfully, Milkcow Cafe is quite good. They have a variety of ice cream creations, all featuring a base of their “organic milk soft serve.” I went with the Milky Cube, which is drizzled with honey and topped with a big chunk of honeycomb.

They’re not kidding around with the milk thing — the ice cream is really unique, with a subtle sweetness and a pronounced milky flavour. It actually tastes like drinking a glass of milk, but in ice cream form. There’s no vanilla flavouring to get in the way; just pure milky goodness. It could have been creamier, and the texture was vaguely icy, but for the most part it was quite satisfying.

The honey had a nicely floral flavour and added a good punch of sweetness, but honestly, the ice cream itself was so interesting I would have been okay eating it on its own.

Tasty Ice Cream at Nadege

Published on June 29, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 780 Queen Street West, Toronto
Website: http://www.nadege-patisserie.com/

Though I feel like the pastries at Nadege have gone a bit downhill since their expansion to multiple locations, I still like the place. And I can’t say no to their latest addition: ice cream (I can never say no to ice cream. Never).

They have a small ice cream shop right next to their original Queen Street location, serving classic scooped ice cream (not to be confused with the soft serve they’ve had for a while now).

There’s a bunch of really interesting looking flavours; I went with La Mancha, which is described as “honey, blackberry, saffron, biscuit.”

It’s good, though the ice cream itself is nothing too special. It’s a bit thin; it’s not nearly as rich or as creamy as it should be. But the flavour makes up for it. It’s got a delightfully subtle sweetness, with refreshing swirls of tart blackberry sauce and big cakey chunks.

I wish the blackberry sauce weren’t so icy and that the chunks weren’t so generous (my scoop was something like fifty percent biscuit and fifty percent ice cream), but I still enjoyed it. I’m keen to go back, if only to try out some of the other flavours; they were almost all really unique.

Fluffy Souffle Pancakes at Hanabusa Cafe

Published on June 26, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 77 Kensington Avenue, Toronto
Website: https://www.hanabusacafe.com/

It seems like every few months, some new food trend sweeps its way through the city. In the last couple of years we’ve had stuff like poke, chicken and waffles, Japanese cheesecakes, and sushi burritos. The latest seems to be souffle pancakes, a Japanese dessert that’s exactly what it sounds like (a cross between pancakes and souffle).

If what they’re serving at Hanabusa Cafe is any indication, this is a trend that I can get behind.

My only other experience with this dish was at a place called am.pm in Hong Kong, and that version was dense, overly eggy, and just all-around unappealing.

The one at Hanabusa Cafe, on the other hand, was the polar opposite — it was almost absurdly fluffy, with a mild sweetness and a satisfying custardy flavour without any of the in-your-face egginess you might be expecting. I ordered the Original Pancake, which is the simplest choice: it’s three pancakes topped with a dollop of whipped cream and served with a side of strawberries and blackberries. It’s outstanding.

Unlike a traditional pancake, it’s already fairly sweet, so it’s perfectly delicious on its own. I could eat about a million of these (though they’re surprisingly heavy, so three feels like a good number). The ethereal lightness combined with the custardy flavour is seriously addictive.

I’ll admit that my expectations weren’t all that high, but I really, really enjoyed this.

Lemon Meringue Croissant from Butter Baker

Published on June 22, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 120 Dundas Street West, Toronto
Website: https://butter-baker.com/

The lemon meringue croissant from Butter Baker is one of those things that I saw on Instagram and immediately had to eat. And yes, I know: this makes me part of the problem.

A very strong argument could be made that social media (Instagram in particular) is making our cuisine appreciably worse by incentivizing restaurants to serve visually innovative food in which the actual taste is an afterthought (e.g. Sweet Jesus).

And that’s absolutely the case here. I mean, look at that! It looks so impressive! But it gets less impressive once you start actually eating it.

For one thing, it’s almost impossible to eat without getting sticky meringue all over your face. But let’s set that complaint aside, because a lot of cupcakes are just as hard to eat without making a mess, and only a monster would argue that a cupcake isn’t great.

The two main issues here are that the croissant itself is merely okay, and the lemon curd filling is completely bland. The latter point is especially egregious; the whole appeal of a lemon meringue pie is the delightful way that the tartness of the lemon curd is offset by the sweetness of the meringue. But here, the curd is disappointingly anemic, with a limp sugariness and almost no sour bite. Because of this, the whole thing comes off as one-dimensionally sweet and boring.

I will, however, give Butter Baker props for the use of creamy Italian meringue over frothy, dull French meringue. This is correct; French meringue is for jerks.