Lazy Daisy's Café

Found a neat little café to meet up with friends for a catch up session.  It’s not in an area that we typically frequent, but it’s nearish our friends and is said to have decent coffee through other reviews.  Lazy Daisy café is a cute, but large family friendly café/coffee house that also serves food.  What caught my eye the most when deciding on coming here versus going elsewhere, is that they’re website says “local, farm fresh, home made food”.  Bonus if you have kids, there’s a play area for little kids with a books and toys for the kids to play with. 

Drink wise, there’s the standard brewed coffee, espresso based drinks, and an assortment of teas.  Food wise, there’s the typical pastries and cookies.  Non typical pastries, home made pop tart!  I was told it was really good, not crazy sweet like the supermarket boxed pop tarts.  Probably less preservatives too!  

Pop Tart

They also have a mini kitchen that can prep simple breakfasts, like eggs and bacon etc.  For their eggs, they use free run eggs.  I ordered “The Standard”, which comes with two free run eggs, Mennonite smoked bacon, toast with butter and fruit.  It was pretty standard, like the name says, but good.  The hubby ordered the Son of a Rise, free run egg, cheddar, double smoked bacon, avocado, and tomato on a homemade country biscuit.  While it sounds like a standard breakfast sandwich, it was the biscuit which made it stand out.  The biscuit was buttery, light and fluffy. 

Son of a Rise & The Standard

Coffees, I ordered an almond milk latte, I think the other drink was a cappuccino?  I honestly can’t remember.  My latte was ok, main complaint, not sure if it’s an almond milk vs milk milk thing, are the bubbles.  It seems more hole-y.

Cappucino & Almond Milk Latte

This is really a family friendly café.  A bonus is that they believe what I believe, support local.  Need more of these types of cafes in the suburbs…..

Lazy Daisy's Café

1515 Gerrard St. E.,

Toronto, ON

M4L 2A4

Phone:  (647) 341-4070

Hours:  Monday - Friday 8am - 5pm

             Saturday & Sunday 8:30am - 3pm

http://www.lazydaisyscafe.ca

Yellow Cup Cafe

Yellow Cup Cafe location wise, super out of the way.  It kind of felt like I was travelling to the middle of nowhere.  But this was the halfway point in between out houses, sort of.  More like 1/3 for them, and 2/3 for me.  But since my friend was preggers at the time, and also had a 2 year old.  Closer for her would be better.

Super cute cafe, with not a lot of seating.  During the summer the patio is open for use.  You order cafeteria style, pay, get a number that you display at your table, and they bring out your order to you.  Food wise, they do crepes, waffles, egg dishes, sandwiches, and coffee.  We ordered the Florentine crepe, and the Breakfast fajita.  The Florentine crepe was filled with eggs, cheese, organic spinach, feta, red onion and tomato, topped with béchamel sauce.  Flavours were very good.  Very light tasting.  But because the egg was broken up and cooked directly on top of the crepe, I miss the egg texture.

Florentine Crepe

The Breakfast fajita was what I wanted.  Filled with scrambled eggs, avocado, tomato and cheese, this one definitely satisfied my egg craving.

Breakfast Fajita

Wish this place was closer to home, makes for a great brunch place.

Yellow Cup Cafe
225 East Mall, Unit #1
Etobicoke, ON

Phone:  416-231-6688

Hours:  Monday - Thursday 7am - 11pm
             Friday 7am - 12am
             Saturday 7am - 11pm
             Sunday 8am - 11pm

http://www.yellowcupcafe.com

Thobors Boulangerie Patisserie Cafe

This is a little piece of Paris heaven for me.  Which makes me happy and sad at the same time.  I love Paris so much, and the last time I was there was when I went backpacking in 2005.  Even though I saw Paris through the eyes of a poor student, I still fell in love with it.  To this day I long to go back.  Each and every time I hear that a friend is going to Paris, it makes me cry a little inside.  Thats how much I want to go back.  I think for now, Thobors is the closest I can get to Paris.

Thobors is a cute little French bakery/patisserie.  It's not only that they make French pastries, but everyone that works there speaks fluent French (speaks English with a thick French accent), and they typically converse in French.  The regulars that walk in the door all speak French too!

When I walked in the door, even though the space was quite small, I was overwhelmed with the selection of cakes, pastries, and breads.  We went for breakfast, so I ordered an omelette with tomatoes, mushrooms & cheese, and the hubby ordered a ham and cheese thing in a puff pastry.  After I paid for my order, I saw this older couple already sitting down and eating just a baguette with butter and jam.  I HAVE FOUND MY PLACE!  I've been looking all over for a place that would serve just that.  I have been on the hunt since Paris.  Something so simple, but yet so hard to find!  Back to my breakfast.  My omelette was made very well.  Eggs were cooked just right.  I find typically when I order omelettes, they always come overcooked.

Omelette

The puff pastry was TO DIE FOR.  Super buttery, flakey mixed with cheesy goodness.  It was so good that we decided to get a loaf of bread, and a bunch of croissants to try at home!

Puff Pastry

Sourdough and Croissants/Pain au Chocolat

While doing some research on Thobors, they say they use Belgian butter, which is supposed to have a different percentage of fat vs water.  Whatever it is, when the croissants are reheated in my little toaster oven, it has a delicious buttery flakey texture.  I would say it's my fave so far!  I'm glad Thobors is so far away from home, otherwise I would get so fat....

Thobors Boulangerie Patisserie Cafe
627 Mt. Pleasant Rd.
Toronto, ON
M4S 2M9

Phone: 416-544-1733

Hours: Wednesday to Saturday 7:30am - 6:30pm
            Sunday 7:30am - 5:30pm

http://www.thobors.ca/index.htm

Thompson Diner

After each of my annual half marathon races (not really sure why I call it a race, since there no way that I can compete with anyone else that runs because i'm too slow), I give myself a cheat meal.  This year it was at the Thompson Diner.  Any place that has the word diner in the restaurant name, would typically indicate some not so healthy choices, which is perfect for a post run meal.  And crazy ordering we did do.  The four of us ordered a full table of food!  We had an omelette with turkey sausage and mushrooms, the grilled cheeseburger, breakfast poutine, fat american and all day breakfast.

What I like most here is the sausage, so good.  I'm not a huge fan of pork, but I will eat it sometimes.  The sausage they serve here is turkey sausage.  So for once, I ordered sausage with my all day breakfast. The all day breakfast consisted of  3 eggs any way you like (looked like large eggs), choice of meats, potatoes and bread.  Nothing super special, but good diner food.

All Day Breakfast

The omelette was apparently cooked well, not overcooked.  I didn't get a chance to taste it, so I'll have to take my friend's word for it.

Omelette

We were surprised at the size of the grilled cheese burger.  It's essentially a very large burger patty sandwiched between 2 grilled cheese sandwiches.  It was huge!  Everyone that sat around us kind of stared when the burger arrived.  I had a small bite of the burger patty to try, it was juicy and flavourful.  I would never order this on my own just because of the sheer size of the burger because I could never finish it.

Grilled Cheese Burger

The hubby ordered the Fat American, 3 very large pancakes.  One of the pancakes was a plain buttermilk pancake, one was filled with turkey sausage, and the last was filled with bacon.  The pancake itself was light and fluffy.  But I wasn't a fan of this dish because I don't like the salty sweet combination.  The hubby enjoyed it though because it was an all in one dish.

Fat American

We also ordered a breakfast poutine to share.  Its basically a regular poutine with some breakfast toppings, turkey sausage, poached egg and hollandaise sauce.  Overall it was good, but I think that they messed up with the egg poaching.  The yolk was cooked all the way through.  I was expecting a runny yolk, which would have been a nice texture with the fries.

Breakfast Poutine

The Thompson Diner's food is definitely heavy, which would make for a great late night drunken meal, or hangover breakfast since they're open 24 hours.

Thompson Diner
550 Wellington St. W
Toronto, ON
M5V 2V5

416-601-3533

Hours:  24 Hours

http://www.thompsondiner.com

B&B Cafe

I used to hate HK style cafes.  The food just never appealed to me.  I much rather preferred Western styled breakfasts.  But ever since returning from a visit to Hong Kong a couple of years ago, my opinion changed.  Partly due to the influence from the significant other.  He loves the breakfasts from the HK style cafes.  So we began to look for the simple breakfast meals that usually give you a good amount of food, for a relatively low cost.  You would think that this would be easy to find because most Chinese plazas have one of these.  But some the flavourings are off (don't ask me how, because the meals are so easy to make), some are expensive, and I don't know, maybe it's just the feel.

On one of our Saturday morning rituals now, yes our Saturdays are very predictable, a sign of old age? We came to B&B Cafe for our breakfast.  Their breakfast offerings are very typical of HK Style Cafes, a noodle in soup with some meat served with toast & eggs, and coffee or tea.  All of that for usually $5.

B&B Cafe Breakfast Menu

B&B Cafe All Day Menu

I ordered Breakfast D, toast & butter, eggs, macaroni & ham in soup.  And the husband ordered the Satay Meal, egg sandwich and satay beef in vermicelli in soup.   As I said it's nothing spectacular.  But it's good.  I would suggest not to order the egg sandwich here though.  The scrambled eggs came out a bit tough.  And I have to apologize, I forgot to take a picture of the satay beef on vermicelli in soup.

Egg Sandwich

Ham & Macaroni in Soup

Butter Toast & Eggs

We come back to this place when we want to be close to home for a quick HK style breakfast.  Again, it's nothing super good, but it's kind of like comfort food.  I guess it also helps when you get the vibe that it's a family run restaurant as well.  They also offer typical Chinese stir fry dishes, noodles, fried rice etc for lunch and dinner.  I have been meaning to check them out for lunch and dinner, but just haven't had a chance yet.

B&B Cafe
50 Bur Oak Ave,
Markham, ON
L6C 0A2

905-887-1068

Uncle Betty's

The name of this place sounds weird.  Uncle Betty.  Usually Betty is a female name isn't it?  This wasn't the only reason why this restaurant caught my eye.  They also make their own donuts!  However, this time I went for a visit, wasn't for the donuts.  Last time my friend went, she brought me back a donut to try.  It was pretty good.  Taste and texture reminded me of those Tiny Tom donuts that my parents used to buy for me and my sister at the CNE.

For my own visit, I didn't feel anything donut related.  That crossed off Uncle Betty's version of the eggs benedict.  Instead of an English muffin bottom, they use one of their home made donuts.  My pick ended up to be Breakfast in a Bowl, which is essentially a breakfast poutine.  Fries topped with eggs, country gravy, cheese and bacon or sausage.  Nothing too special.  Found the country gravy a little bland and the egg whites slightly overcooked.  Hubby ordered a "grilled cheese", which had meatloaf, and mac n' cheese and a side of sweet potato fries.  The idea is awesome!  The meatloaf was pretty tasty, but the mac n'cheese was bland and on the dry side.

Overall, very cute place, great atmosphere, and worth a visit if you're in the area anyways.

Breakfast in a Bowl

Grilled Cheese

Uncle Betty's
2590 Yonge St.,
Toronto, ON M4p 2J3
(416) 483-2590

Summer Hours:
Monday - Friday 9:30am - 9pm
Saturday & Sunday 8:30am - 9pm

Fall/Winter Hours:
Monday - Wednesday 10am - 8pm
Thursday & Friday 9:30am - 9pm
Saturday 8:30am - 9pm
Sunday 8:30am - 8pm

Tacos El Asador

My coworker loves breakfast foods, so do I.  One morning she had this crazy craving for beans and eggs.  To me, this sounded like the oddest combination ever.  But then again, the English have baked beans in their traditional English breakfasts, so I guess it might not be so strange after all?

So on the last day of my fall school term, we met up at one of her favourite Latin places for this Latin breakfast.  She says it's still not as good as her moms, but satisfies the craving.  Tacos El Asador is VERY small, and not a place to have a long chat.  The food must be good, it was completely PACKED!

The breakfast consists of eggs, which I was told to get them scrambled because they put in onions and peppers in for flavour, avocado, beans, fried plantains, queso fresco, and sour cream.  This whole fried bananas/plantains thing was kind of strange.  I'm used to eating bananas by themselves.  But these fried plantains were super yummy.  Just a little sweet with a tiny hint of tang (like green bananas which I love) and firm.  The combination of the eggs, beans, queso fresco, sour cream, and avocado was so good!

Breakfast

The hubby also ordered a chicken taco and a burrito.  After eating these corn tortillas, I can't go back to eating the flour ones from the supermarket.  They don't stick to the roof of your mouth!  And they actually taste like something!  The chicken in the taco was very tender, we felt like it was just missing some seasoning.  The chicken burrito in the back was very yummy!  Just the right amount of flavour.

Chicken Tacos

I need to come back and try some of the other things on the menu.  Now only if there was a way for me to figure out what the words on the menu mean.....

Tacos El Asador
690 Bloor St W.
Toronto, ON
M6G 1L2
416-538-9747

Hours:  Mon - Tues, Thurs - Sat 12pm - 9pm
             Wed 1pm - 9pm
             Sun 2pm - 9pm