Unique Thai Brunch at Le Lert

Le Lert
Location
: 27 Carlton Street, Toronto
Website: https://lelert.ca/

I like brunch — we all like brunch — but sometimes it can get a bit boring.  Enter Le Lert, which has a fun brunch menu with a Thai twist.

Le Lert

There’s some tempting stuff on the menu, but I went with the omelette over rice, which you can get with northern style sausage patties, grilled pork jowl, pan-grilled striploin, roasted chicken thigh, or grilled mixed mushrooms.

I got the grilled pork jowl, though I was able to try one of the sausages as well.

Le Lert

It’s tasty stuff.  The perfectly-cooked omelette and the fluffy rice make for a great combo, and the unctuous pork jowl is tender and flavourful.  As for the northern style sausage patty, it’s just as good, with a great lemongrass-infused flavour.   The plate also comes with a little bowl of a thick, zippy sauce that does a great job of jazzing everything up.  It’s tasty stuff.

Hearty Kothu Roti at Saffron Spice Kitchen

Hearty Kothu Roti at Saffron Spice Kitchen
Location
: 459 Queen Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.saffronspicekitchen.com/

Saffron Spice Kitchen is a delightful little restaurant on Queen Street specializing in Sri Lankan eats.  And when I say little, I mean little.  They’ve got a couple of counter seats, but mostly, this is a take-out place.

Hearty Kothu Roti at Saffron Spice Kitchen

They have a variety of wraps and curries on the menu, but their specialty seems to be the kothu roti (basically a Sri Lankan hash, with chopped up roti, eggs, and meat), with the butter chicken version being the one they’re best known for.

It’s quite tasty and seriously hearty, with a richness from the eggs and a satisfying chewiness from the roti.  It’s also delightfully flavourful, and is absolutely crammed with Sri Lankan spices.

Hearty Kothu Roti at Saffron Spice Kitchen

The butter chicken on top isn’t going to knock anyone’s socks off, it’s a solid version of the dish and works well with the kothu roti.

You can choose from three levels levels of heat; I went with the hottest version, and while it could have been hotter, it was studded with sliced peppers that gave it some nice pops of heat.  It’s a tasty dish.

Hearty Kothu Roti at Saffron Spice Kitchen

But the portion, good lord.  It costs fifteen bucks, which seems like it might be on the pricey side until they hand it to you and you realize that it must weigh like three or four pounds.  It’s a good thing this is mostly a take-out joint, because this is a dish that either needs to be shared or split up into like two or three meals.  I barely made a dent in it.

Amazing Breakfast Sandwiches at Dad’s Breakfast & Coffee

Dad's Breakfast & Coffee
Location
: 1473 Dundas Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.instagram.com/dads.goodmorning

Dad’s Breakfast Sandwiches opened pretty recently, and it’s already extremely popular.  I tried to visit a couple of weeks ago, at just before noon on a Saturday, and it was all sold out.  I don’t mean one or two sandwiches were sold out.  I mean they had sold out of everything.

Clearly, going early is advisable.  I showed up at around 9:00am this time, and the place was packed, so I’m guessing another sell-out was inevitable.

Dad's Breakfast & Coffee

(An aside: the sign calls this place “Dad’s Breakfast Sandwiches,” but online, it appears to be called “Dad’s Breakfast & Coffee.”  Figure out a name and stick with it, guys; this isn’t that hard.)

I tried a couple of the sandwiches: Dad’s ’48 (“egg, hashbrown, cheddar, house ketchup, bacon or sausage”) and Katsu Dad (“katsu egg, caramelized onions, chili crisp, aioli”).

Dad's Breakfast & Coffee

I was wondering if maybe this place was a bit over-hyped, but both of these sandwiches took my skepticism, loaded it into a cannon and shot it into the sun.  The hype: 100 percent deserved.

Dad's Breakfast & Coffee

The Dad’s ’48 is the more traditional of the two, but is just perfectly executed on every level.  You can choose between bacon and sausage; the guy behind the counter mentioned that they make their sausage in house, so that’s what I went with.

Dad's Breakfast & Coffee

It’s phenomenal.  Perfect balance between the silky egg patty, the gooey cheese, the meaty sausage (which is nicely spiced and thoroughly delicious), and the crispy hashbrown.  The ketchup and pickle slices (which the menu doesn’t mention) add more flavour and zinginess.  The fluffy, slightly sweet bun is the perfect vehicle.  It’s a top-tier breakfast sandwich.  One of the best in the city for sure.

Dad's Breakfast & Coffee

But as much as I liked that one, I think I might have liked the Katsu Dad even more.  The idea of breading and frying an egg patty is, frankly, genius.  It’s got a great level of crispiness on its exterior, but the egg patty within is just as silky and perfectly cooked at the non-fried one in the Dad’s ’48.

Dad's Breakfast & Coffee

And the combo of the ultra-savoury, mildly spicy chili crisp and the sweet caramelized onions — not to mention the creamy aioli — is a big winner.  I can’t say I’ve ever had a breakfast sandwich quite like this before, and it’s one that will live in my dreams forever.

Sweet and Savoury Crepes at La Crepe

La Crepe
Location
: 300 Richmond Street West, Toronto
Website: None

Note: I’ve got a bit of a backlog of posts, and apparently this place has closed since my visit.  Super useful post, I know.  Enjoy?

La Crepe

La Crepe is a relatively new restaurant downtown that specializes in crepes.  They have a few stools inside and one table outside, but mostly, it’s a take-out joint.

They have two sides of the menu: sweet, classic crepes, and savoury buckwheat crepes.  I ordered the Parisienne from the savoury side (“French Emmental, ham, side up egg”).

La Crepe

A whole bunch of gooey cheese, ham, and an egg is always going to be a tasty combo.  You cannot go wrong there.  It’s impossible.  They also peppered it pretty aggressively, which complemented the other ingredients well.  It’s quite tasty.

The crepe was a little disappointing, though.  The best buckwheat crepes have a light exterior crispiness and a chewy interior; this one was was just kinda dry throughout, despite being freshly made.

La Crepe

Still, it certainly wasn’t bad, and was a nice vehicle for the tasty stuff within.  It may not have blown my mind, but it was a solid meal.

Tasty Breakfast Sandwiches at La Boulangerie

La Boulangerie
Location
: 1134 Dundas Street West, Toronto
Website: https://laboulangeriedundas.com/

The breakfast sandwich at La Boulangerie was recommended by no less than Susur Lee, so I figured it was probably worth checking out.

And clearly, La Boulangerie is a popular place, because it was absolutely swarming with people when I visited on a recent Sunday afternoon.

La Boulangerie

They have a handful of tasty-looking sandwiches on the menu, but on this particular visit, I was a man on a mission.

The breakfast sandwich, as per their menu: “egg, ham, bacon, white cheddar.”

It’s a well-executed breakfast sandwich, that’s for sure.  The eggs are perfectly cooked, and the quality of the ham and the bacon are top-notch.

La Boulangerie

I don’t know if it’s worth going out of your way for, though.  It’s very good, but it’s such a basic, unornamented sandwich that it’s hard to get too excited about it.

This is probably not something I should admit publicly, but it also doesn’t pass my personal “is this substantially better than a McMuffin?” test.  I clearly have garbage taste, because I think a McMuffin from McDonald’s is better than like 90 percent of the fancy breakfast sandwiches in the city, including this one.