milkshake – Michael Eats

Tasty Eats at Shake Shack x MIMI Chinese

Published on May 17, 2025 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 10 Dundas Street East, Toronto
Website: https://shakeshack.ca/

Shake Shack is currently doing a limited-time collaboration with Mimi Chinese. It ends on May 26, so you’d better hurry if you want to check it out (and trust me, you want to check it out). They’re serving a chicken sandwich, seasoned fries, and a black sesame milkshake; all three are thoroughly delicious.

First up: the Málà Chicken sandwich (“Crispy chicken spiced with MIMI’s signature chili oil, charred scallion relish, green chili mayo, tangy pickles and lettuce”).

In Chinese cuisine, “mala” refers to a flavour that’s simultaneously spicy and numbing (thanks to Sichuan peppercorns), and yeah, this sandwich nails that. It’s not the spiciest thing you’ll ever eat, but it’s got a good kick and a noticeable tingliness from the peppercorns.

The sandwich is otherwise nice and zippy, with a great balance of flavours. It was kind of a bummer that the piece of chicken in my sandwich only filled half the bun (it was basically a hefty chicken strip), but the quality was great, with a crispy exterior and a very juicy interior (particularly impressive, given that it’s white meat).

And everything here was so tasty that even the condiment-only half of the sandwich was still satisfying.

I also tried the Shaokao Fries (“Crinkle cuts, street food–style—dusted with cumin, chili, and Sichuan peppercorn. Served with green chili mayo”).

The fries themselves were standard-issue crinkle cut fries, but that tasty seasoning really elevates them, with more of that hot/numbing flavour. And the dip is a great combo of creamy and zesty.

I wasn’t planning on getting the milkshake, but if you’re already getting the sandwich and the fries, I guess you may as well go all the way and get the shake, too. The Black Sesame Coconut Shake: “A nutty blend of black sesame and coconut inspired by traditional Chinese desserts.”

And hey, what do you know — this was pretty great, too. In particular, the pronounced black sesame flavour actually works really well in a milkshake, which was nice and creamy without being overly thick.

The Truth About Milkshakes

Published on September 3, 2019 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 25 The West Mall, Etobicoke (inside Sherway Gardens)
Website: https://www.sweetjesusicecream.com/

I’m just gonna say it: milkshakes are for jerks.

Well, okay, maybe that’s not true. Milkshakes are perfectly delicious, but generally speaking, if I’m going to eat ice cream, I want to eat ice cream. I don’t need to drink it.

Still, I don’t mind a milkshake every now and then, and since I’ve tried all the cones at Sweet Jesus, I figured sure, why not?

I got the Peanut Butter, Pretzel & Chocolate Hazelnut shake, which features “vanilla soft serve, peanut butter sauce, caramel sauce, whipped cream, hazelnut-chocolate sauce, salted pretzel crumble.”

Yeah, it’s a lot of stuff. And it’s quite tasty — it tastes pretty much exactly what you think it’s going to taste like based on that description.

I find a lot of milkshakes to be unpleasantly thick; if I have to struggle to suck it up through a straw, then what’s the point? Just let me just eat it with a spoon. This, on the other hand, was easily drinkable. It was the perfect consistency, though I suspect milkshake aficionados might find it too thin.

Tasty Vegan Treats at Nanashake

Published on April 26, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 4750 Yonge Street, North York (in the Emerald Park food court)
Website: http://www.nanashake.com/

I recently blogged about the tasty Chinese crepes at the Emerald Park food court. Also at that food court? Nanashake, which serves vegan, banana-based soft serve and shakes.

I almost got the soft serve (because I have a very hard time saying no to soft serve of any kind), but then I remembered that “shake” is right there in the name of the restaurant, so I got one of those instead.

They have a few different flavours — strawberry, pistachio, date, etc. — but the guy behind the counter said chocolate was the most popular, so that’s what I went with.

It was quite refreshing. It tasted more like a smoothie than a milkshake (it is vegan and made predominantly with bananas, after all), but whatever it is, it’s good. The banana/chocolate flavour was satisfying, and its level of sweetness was much more subtle than a typical milkshake. It probably won’t satisfy an all-out dessert craving, but it’s a refreshing and tasty beverage that I’d happily drink again.

Plus, it is (presumably) healthy; something that’s good for you and actually tastes really good is always nice.

Milkshake Disappointment at the Hershey Store

Published on March 10, 2018March 10, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

There’s a Hershey store in Niagara Falls, and I have a pretty vivid memory of the chocolate milkshake there being amazing.

Granted, this was at least a decade ago, but when I recently found myself in Niagara Falls with some time to kill, I got very excited by the prospect of having this milkshake again.

In my memory, this was a superior milkshake with a surprisingly intense chocolaty flavour. I’ve never been a fan of Hershey chocolate, but this milkshake was something else. It was special.

Well, either I’m way wrong about this or it’s gone way downhill, because the milkshake was not good at all. It was throat-burningly sweet, and it didn’t even have much of a chocolaty flavour. It was just all-encompassing sweetness. It was bad.

I got about halfway through, ate the Hershey’s Kiss on top (which tasted like nothing after the mouth-annihilating sweetness of the milkshake), then chucked the rest in the garbage.