Anniversary: Cafe Pamenar, NAO Steakhouse, Bunner's Bakeshop

I think this is the first year, after 5 years of marriage where we actually celebrated our anniversary.  I have to take the blame for this.  I’m usually the “Meh, its just another day”, type of person.  Which I know makes him less than enthused.  The hubby, who always likes to plan for surprises, planned this weeks in advance.  I have never been big on celebrating holidays, or birthdays.  I do however get excited for Christmas.  I’m not sure why there’s a difference. 

The anniversary was on a Friday, and because we had recently come back from a 2 week long vacation (there will be a post on that…just need to find time), we didn’t take the day off.  After work, I drove downtown to run some errands first.  Who knew traffic would be so good on a Friday!  To kill time, I wandered through Kensington Market.  It was really a horrible day to wander because it was POURING rain.  I thought I would be prepared by wearing my Hunter rainboots (they’re tall and go up to my knees) and carrying an umbrella.  It was raining so hard that rain got into my boots so my feet were wet.  That’s when I decided to stop into Café Pamenar.  Cute little coffee spot.  Lots of people sitting with their notebooks working, gave me the idea to work on my Noma post.  I ordered a cortado (discovered my love for them while in Scandinavia), my drink of choice now when I feel like I need a quick caffeine boost, and a vegan ginger molasses cookie (was told that it was from Bunner's Bakeshop across the street).  The ginger molasses cookie was very good.  Good ginger flavour, and sweet enough, almost on the verge of being overly sweet.  So for a person with a less bland palette, it would be perfect.  The cortado was also good, smooth, and just creamy enough with the milk.  Will return again when I’m in the area.  It’s a good working spot, even though I barely put a dent in my Noma post.  

Cortado & Ginger Molasses Cookie

Next stop was Bunner's, a vegan/gluten free bakeshop.  It wasn’t an intended stop, but I decided to stop in just because I enjoyed my cookie and it was on the way back to my car.  And also a friend (whose vegan) tells me that this place is awesome.  I picked up a red velvet cupcake and a chocolate salted caramel cupcake.  These were for dessert, after our mystery anniversary dinner.  At this point, my husband still hadn’t told me where we were eating, just told me to find parking in Yorkville. 

I think I already knew where we were going to go for dinner.  I just didn’t want to ruin the surprise.  My husband usually leaves the restaurant picking to me.  So for him to select a restaurant and “surprise” me with it, it must be a restaurant he heard me talk about a few times.  And it turns out, my guess was right.  Dinner was at NAO.  NAO is a steakhouse in Yorkville that has a bit of fusion flavours thrown in.  The range of beef available is quite extensive.  It ranges from just regular prime USDA , beef from Alberta, to Australian and Japanese Wagyu, to Kobe.  We ordered a salad to start (can’t remember what it was called), bone marrow, Alberta ribeye, and Australian Wagyu striploin, fries and asparagus.

The salad was great, the lettuce was fresh and crisp.  There were some candied pecans and avocado tossed in.  Dressing was a yuzu dressing if I remember correctly.  I normally ask for dressing on the side, because I hate overdressed salads, and I forgot this time, so I was worried.  But it came out perfect.  Also, love the plate itself.

Salad

We also ordered bone marrow.  I used to hate this stuff.  But after Noma, I learned to love it.  I think Noma can make you love anything.  The order came with 1 piece of bone, split into 2.  When our waitress brought it over, she said something about that it was split or something, and that the chef was going to give us another piece.  The more the merrier?  At least my belly thought so!  It was no Noma, but it was deliciously fatty.

Bone Marrow

When the beef arrived it looked a little darker than I would have liked on the outside.  Sorry the pictures are so dark!  I don't understand why restaurants like to dim the lights so much!  Makes for very difficult picture taking.  The Alberta ribeye was tender and had good flavour.  What I didn’t like was that I got a piece of muscle, so had to eat around that.  Of course, the best was the Waygu.  The Wagyu, you order by weight.  So depending on how much money you want to spend, you can go as lavish or bank account safe as you want.  So flavourful, and so tender.  Could eat more, but that would have gotten too expensive.

Alberta Ribeye & Wagyu Striploin

The sides were just meh.  The fries were done so they were like shoestring fries, served with house made ketchup.  I normally like shoestring fries because they tend to be crispier.  They were crispy in this case, but the pieces were so small.  It was almost as if they were the leftovers of the batch of fries and gave it to us as our serving.  The asparagus was cooked well.  It was served with a house made hollandaise sauce.  The sauce was great.  I ate a lot of the hollandaise sauce, not with the asparagus, but with the fries.  I can't say I enjoy the combination of asparagus and hollandaise.

Asparagus & Fries

Overall, the food was prepared well.  I liked the selection of beef available, and also like how you can order certain cuts by weight.  The service was just ok, nothing special.  What surprised me was that even though they knew that it was our anniversary (my husband mentioned it was our anniversary when he made the booking, plus he brought flowers and gifts etc), there was no dessert thrown in or anything.  I would have thought a high end steakhouse like this would have done something.  Guess their service needs to be worked on a bit more.  It’s still a relatively new place?
Back at home, we had the Bunner's cupcakes for dessert.  Overall, I found the cupcake base itself dry.  And the icing/buttercream/topping, was overly sweet and dense.  Is this what vegans have to settle for?  I know for sure that gluten free cupcakes don’t have to have this dense dry texture, because I’ve made gluten free cupcakes for a friend before.  And from what I remember, these cupcakes weren’t exactly cheap either.  So unless you really have a sensitivity/intolerance/allergy/strong aversion to eating animal products, don’t jump on the vegan/gluten free bandwagon.  Stick to how cupcakes are supposed to be made.

Salted Caramel & Red Velvet Vegan Cupcakes

Café Pamenar
307 Augusta Ave.,
Toronto, ON
M5T 2M2

Phone:  647-352-3627

Hours:  Monday 8am - 7pm
             Tuesday - Saturday 8am - 12am (midnight)
             Sunday 8am - 7pm

http://cafepamenar.ca

NAO Steakhouse
90 Avenue Rd.,
Toronto, ON
M5R 2H2

Phone:  416-367-4141

Hours:  Monday - Saturday 5pm - 2am
             Sunday CLOSED

http://naosteakhouse.com

Bunner's Bakeshop
244 Augusta Ave.,
Toronto, ON
M5T 2L7

Phone:  647-350-2975

Hours:  Monday - Sunday 10am - 7pm

http://www.bunners.ca

Sullivan & Bleeker

My friend introduced me to another cupcake place.  They currently don’t have their own storefront as of yet.  You can either purchase their baked goods from supermarkets such as Pusateri's or call ahead and pick up from where they bake the products.

My friend called ahead, placed an order and picked up at their 'baking' location.  Lucky us, my super generous friend shared 2 cupcakes with us.  We were given a red velvet and the Chief Wiggum.  Red velvet is pretty self explanatory, chocolate cupcake that is coloured red (supposed to be from the reaction of the cocoa and vinegar, but now is usually from food colouring) topped off with a cream cheese frosting.  The Chief Wiggum is a chocolate cupcake with coffee frosting topped with a mini donut.  The cupcake base was just ok, it was borderline dry.  The flavour of the frosting for both cupcakes were good, but I wasn't a fan of how heavy frosting was.  I give them bonus points for creativity for the Chief Wiggum combination.

Sullivan & Bleeker Cupcakes

Left: Chief Wiggum, Right: Red Velvet

We also bought some of their cookies to try from a Pusateri's.  The pack that we got contained 6 large cookies, with chocolate chip, s'mores, and red velvet flavours.  Chocolate chip and s'mores were very standard, but the red velvet was very good and chewy!  Price I think was $9 for 6 cookies.

For all the parents out there that are looking for a nut free bakery for your kid's birthday parties, Sullivan & Bleeker is a good option.  It's much better tasting than one of the biggest named nut free bakeries out there.

Sullivan & Bleeker

http://sullivanandbleeker.com

Short & Sweet Cupcakes

I've been dying to find a good cupcake place, with consistently good cupcakes.  It's not worth my time to go to a place where I can find ONE good cupcake variety, but all the other ones suck because they're either too dry, too oily, or not enough flavor.  And I'm only talking about the cupcake base.  The buttercream/frosting on the top is something totally different.  The best buttercream that I have tasted has to be from Magnolia Bakery in New York City.  I have yet to find any place in Toronto that makes such a light buttercream, it's always so super heavy and dense, and sugary gritty!

Short & Sweet Cupcakes at least does the base right.  Nice and fluffy without being greasy.  It's not too sweet, so when you do eat it with the buttercream/frosting, it's just the right amount of sweetness.  The chocolate cupcake had just the right amount of chocolate.  The vanilla cupcake had just the right amount of vanilla flavor.  But for some reason the red velvet lacked in chocolate flavor!  I think my favorite had to be the carrot cupcake.

If there are any parents out there that are looking for delicious AND nut free cupcakes, this is where to go.  These cupcakes are not by any means friendly to the wallet, they're $2.90 each.  But if your child is only allowed to bring nut free cakes to school to share with their buddies, this is the place to go.

Short & Sweet Cupcakes

I wish I took a picture before my inlaws attacked the box.  They went right at it as soon as the box hit the kitchen table.  This is what I had left by the end of the night.  :(

Short & Sweet Cupcakes
1945 Avenue Road
Toronto, ON M5M 4A2
Tel: 416-519-6633
http://www.shortandsweetcupcakes.ca

In the fall they will be opening up a location in Vaughan.

Bakesale Cupcakes

Every once in a while, I will purchase a 'deal' from Wagjag, Groupon, Fabfind etc.  It's a way for me to try out a new place for cheaper than it would normally cost.  In this case, I bought a coupon $15 for a dozen cupcakes at Bakesale.  I love cupcakes, if they're done right.  They have to be moist without being greasy and the buttercream has to be light.  I hate icing, it's too heavy and too sweet.  I think these should be easy to meet criteria.

Bakesale's store interior looked super cute.  Reminded me of a cozy country home with cupcakes on display behind the counter.  Cupcakes cost $2.75 and up depending on the flavor.  Thats some pretty pricey cupcakes there.  Good thing I had my coupon.  For my dozen cupcakes I chose the following flavors: Vanilla, Chocolate, Chocolate Mint, Peanut Butter, Red Velvet, Lemon, Carrot.

Whenever I visit any cupcake store, I always judge the cupcake by their Red Velvet.  I love the redness of the cupcake, the chocolately flavor, and the cream cheese buttercream.  Bakesale fell short.  It had nice colour, but the cupcake was DRY and the cream cheese frosting was dense, too sweet and too heavy.  In general their buttercream was too heavy and thick for my liking, it was more like icing to me.  Each time I ate a cupcake I had to scrape off half the icing.  Such a waste I know!  Their Vanilla and Chocolate cupcake bottoms, nothing special, they were moist and light, but tasted like it was not made from scratch, but made from box mix.  It had a metallic aftertaste.  Lemon cupcake, cupcake had no lemon flavor, was just a plain vanilla cupcake that was heavy and dry.  The only lemon flavoring was in the lemon icing.  The best cupcake had to be the carrot one.  Yummm....real carrot shreds in the cupcake which was moist.

Bakesale Cupcakes

Considering the distance, expensive regular price, and medicore cupcakes.  I will not be visiting again.  Why is it so hard to find good cupcakes?  You would assume that if there's so many cupcakeries open, that the cupcakes must be good!  Unfortunately that's not the case.

Bakesale has two locations.  I visited Bakesale Six Points.

Bakesale Six Points
5230 Dundas St. W., Toronto, ON
416-792-6167
M-F 10-8, Sat. 9-7, Sun. 10-6

Bakesale Kingsway
3076 Bloor St. W., Toronto, ON
416-232-2253
M-F 10-7, Sat. 9-6, Sun. 10-4