pistachio – 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.

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.

A Delicious Dubai Chocolate Cookie at Andrea’s Cookies

Published on June 1, 2025 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 166 Ossington Avenue, Toronto
Website: https://andreascookies.com/

The last time I tried a cookie from Andrea’s, I’ll admit that I liked it but didn’t love it. I’m just not generally a fan of the type of underbaked-on-purpose cookies that they serve here.

The cookie I just had, however? Phenomenal. Seriously, seriously good.

I got the knafeh, which is basically their take on the Dubai chocolate craze that’s slowly taking over the world (“milk & dark chocolate, phyllo, pistachio cream, pistachios”).

Oof, it’s good. With a chocolatey cookie like this (particularly with all the stuff they’ve crammed into it and onto it), my issues with an underbaked cookie completely disappear. This cookie was pleasantly soft, but had none of the raw flour flavour or gumminess that can plague these types of cookies.

That’s not to mention the the crispy bits of kadayif, which do a great job of bringing the soft cookie some texture.

And of course, the combo between the very chocolatey cookie and the rich pistachio cream is a big winner. It helps that they’re clearly using good quality chocolate, but it’s easily one of the better cookies I’ve had in a while.

Delicious Doughnuts at Fab’s Donuts

Published on April 19, 2025 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1618 Queen Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.instagram.com/fabsdonuts/

Fab’s is in the same spot where Maverick’s Donut Company used to be, which I liked a whole lot. Apparently it’s from the same owners, who decided to strike out on their own. Clearly, they know what they’re doing, because the doughnuts here are very, very good.

They are quite different, however — notably, Maverick’s specialized mostly in cake doughnuts, and as far as I can tell, this is a cake-free zone. All the doughnuts that I tried were classic raised doughnuts.

I tried four: creme brulee, pistachio heaven, Biscoff, and chocolate kunafa.

All were generously filled, and all were thoroughly delicious, though the creme brulee — with its crackly top and tasty custard filling — was probably my favourite.

But then everything was thoroughly tasty, with the doughnuts themselves having a nice chewy texture, and with the flavours being right where they should be. It’s all quite sweet, but not a sugar-bomb. They’re great doughnuts.