Stackt Market – Michael Eats

Decent Gelato with a Fun Gimmick at Solato

Published on July 25, 2021 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: Stackt Market (28 Bathurst Street, Toronto)
Website: https://www.solato.com/

Solato is a new gelato place in the Stackt Market with a pretty distinctive gimmick — the gelato itself is made on the spot in a process that’s basically like coffee pods, but for ice cream. It’s very slick.

The menu is relatively limited; when I went, it was just vanilla, chocolate, hazelnut, and a couple of fruity flavours. You can either get the gelato by itself for six bucks, or pay an extra dollar and get a couple of toppings.

I went with hazelnut sans-toppings, and the whole process was pretty seamless; they put a pod in one of the machines, and within a couple of minutes it was dispensing soft serve gelato.

It’s fine. It’s a fun gimmick, I guess, but it’s hard to deny that there’s better gelato in the city.

I was afraid it might taste artificial, but it has a pretty clean hazelnut flavour, albeit a weak one (the nutty taste is far from robust). It’s very smooth, which I guess is the advantage of making it right on the spot, but otherwise it’s nothing special; it’s a bit of a shrug, especially for the price, but if you’re in the Stackt Market anyway it might be worth a shot just for the novelty value.

Chilled Spicy Noodles at the Momofuku Noodle Bar Pop-up at Stackt Market

Published on July 15, 2021 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: Stackt Market (28 Bathurst Street, Toronto)
Website: https://noodlebar-toronto.momofuku.com/

Momofuku Noodle Bar is currently doing a pop-up at Stackt Market; it’s outdoors and the menu is limited, but it was my first time eating at a restaurant with a waitress and the whole rigmarole since last March (which, coincidentally enough, was also at the Noodle Bar).

I had the Chilled Spicy Noodles, which the menu describes as “ramen noodles, black bean sauce, sichuan beef, candy cashew.”

My delight at being back at a restaurant (or in a restaurant-ish setting, at least) might be colouring my opinion here, but man it was good.

It’s an explosion of flavour — it’s salty, it’s savoury, it’s meaty, it’s sweet — but everything complements each other so well. And that black bean sauce is a taste bonanza; it’s basically like a really great hoisin sauce, but with pops of intense flavour from the beans themselves (I don’t know what they do to the beans to get them to taste almost cheese-like, but it’s magical).

It’s served cold, which only intensifies the flavour, and the chewy ramen noodles are the perfect vehicle to bring it all together. It’s a tasty dish.

Mediocre Doughnuts at Donut Monster

Published on October 10, 2019 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 28 Bathurst Street, Toronto
Website: https://www.donutmonster.ca/

Donut Monster is a really acclaimed doughnut joint from Hamilton that recently opened a location in Toronto’s Stackt Market. I’ve been hearing nothing but good things about their doughnuts for a while now — if they hadn’t opened an outpost in Toronto, taking a long drive to Hamilton might have been in order.

I’m so glad I didn’t drive all the way to Hamilton for this.

I tried the Cherry Cheesecake Bullseye, which features sour cherry pie filling, cream cheese icing, and a graham cracker crumble.

I know a lot of people are more concerned about a doughnut’s fillings/toppings than anything else, and on that level this was pretty decent — the balance between the tart cherries and the sweet frosting was actually quite good.

But the doughnut itself was seriously disappointing; it was dense and dry and boring. It was like Wonder Bread. There’s nothing to it. I’m pretty sure the prepacked doughnuts you can get at the supermarket aren’t much worse.

It certainly wasn’t unpleasant, but from a high-end doughnut place it’s a huge let-down.