More Delicious Doughnuts at Dipped Donuts

Dipped Donuts
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).

Dipped Donuts

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

Dipped Donuts

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

Dipped Donuts

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.

Dipped Donuts

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

Tasty (and Unique) Ice Cream at Good Gang Ice Cream

Good Gang Ice Cream
Location
: 656 Annette Street, Toronto
Website: https://www.goodgangicecream.com/

Good Gang’s been scooping up ice cream for a few years now, though they’ve only just moved to their new location on the west end in the last few months.  Judging by the pretty serious line when I showed up on a recent Sunday afternoon, it’s a hit.

I should note that their hours are currently a bit odd (they’re open from Friday to Sunday, 3:00pm to 8:00pm), but they’ll presumably be expanding a bit in the coming weeks and months.

Good Gang Ice Cream

When I visited, they had an assortment of 19 flavours — most of it interesting, oddball stuff like black currant leaf, majicha brownie, and salted yuzu.

(I should also note that the format of the menu is quite similar to the one at Bang Bang, which makes me wonder if maybe the owners here used to work there?  I will very strongly advise you to not try to look into this by googling “Good Gang Bang Bang,” however.  No ice cream facts to be found there, that’s for sure.)

Good Gang Ice Cream

I got a scoop of the toast flavour (“sourdough bread base, haskap jam”), and I enjoyed it quite a lot.

They’re clearly starting with very good quality ice cream — it’s thoroughly rich and creamy, and based on this one scoop, seems to be up there with the best stuff in the city.

And the flavour is quite satisfying.  I don’t know if there’s any particular sourdough flavour, but the bread — broken down into soft, fine crumbs — adds a pretty distinct personality to the scoop, and the jam adds a nice fruity sweetness (without being overly sweet).  It’s really tasty.

Fruit on a Stick at Tanghulu Tanghulu

Tanghulu Tanghulu
Location
: 252 Queen Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.tanghulutanghulu.com/

Tanghulu is an Asian street food snack in which pieces of fruit are coated in crispy sugar and served on a stick.  That’s it — fruit + sugar + stick.

Tanghulu Tanghulu

At Tanghulu Tanghulu, they give strawberries, blueberries, grapes, and clementines the sugar-coating treatment.  They also serve fruit cups with chocolate sauce.

I went with strawberries, and yeah, it’s good.  The strawberries were fresh, ripe, and juicy, and the generous layer of sugar gives it a nice crunch and some extra sweetness.

Tanghulu Tanghulu

That’s it.  It’s fruit covered in glassy sugar.  It’s exactly what you think it is.

Quick Bites: Brodflour, Harry and Heel’s California Donuts, Super Serve

Steak sandwich from Brodflour
Steak sandwich from Brodflour

Brodflour sells the best sourdough sandwich bread in the city; that’s just a fact (though a lot of bakeries that might have been in contention for this crown take themselves out of the running by refusing to slice their bread, which is just baffling to me).  I was in the bakery to pick up a loaf and saw a pile of steak sandwiches that I couldn’t resist.  I mean, if you can see this display and not immediately demand to eat one of these sandwiches, you and me are very different people:

Steak sandwich from Brodflour

This isn’t on the regular menu, but I wish it was.  It’s a top-notch steak sandwich, crammed with a whole bunch of great-quality beef and a zippy, garlicky sauce that complements it perfectly.  And, of course, the sourdough flatbread that it’s served on is very good.  The steak was slightly tough in spots, but this was otherwise a seriously tasty sandwich.

Sour Cream Glazed from Harry and Heel's California Donuts
Sour Cream Glazed from Harry and Heel’s California Donuts

I love a good sour cream glazed doughnut, and this was a tasty one.  I kinda wish they had an unglazed option (it’s very, very sweet), and I could barely taste the chocolate on top, but the doughnut is crispy, cakey, and delightful.  I quite enjoyed it.  Harry and Heel’s specializes in raised doughnuts rather than cakey ones, so I’m going to have to go back at some point to try one of those.  I should note that if you’re looking for this place, it doesn’t have its own storefront — it’s inside Fourth Man in the Fire, a pizza joint.

Strawberry Sundae from Super Serve
Strawberry Sundae from Super Serve

If you’ve been missing Sweet Jesus, which has lost all but a handful of its locations over the years, you’ll be happy to hear that Super Serve is very, very similar.  They have a few sundaes on the menu, along with the option to customize your own.  I went with “Serve 3,” which is a chocolate/vanilla twist that comes topped with cookie crumbs and strawberry sauce.  It’s tasty enough, though the quality of the soft serve is only about on par with what they have at Dairy Queen or McDonald’s (to go back to the Sweet Jesus comparison, their ice cream is noticeably richer and creamier).

Delicious Soft Serve at Butter Baker

Butter Baker
Location
: 140 Amber Street, Markham
Website: https://butter-baker.com/

The last time I tried Butter Baker, I had a croissant that I wasn’t particularly crazy about.  I figured I’d try the soft serve this time, and it was thoroughly delicious.  So clearly, that’s the thing to order.

Butter Baker

I think the flavours rotate, but when I visited, they were serving a swirl consisting of plain frozen yogurt and a sorbet with passionfruit and… some other stuff.  The guy described the flavour to me, and I immediately forgot.  I know, I know — great blogging, very helpful.  You’re welcome.

Butter Baker

Whatever it is, it’s quite good, with the slightly tart sorbet balancing quite nicely with the sweet yogurt.  That sweetness is maybe a bit too amped up, but that’s a minor complaint.