Le Beau

Pastry Chef Olga Spivak changed the croissant game in the GTA when she opened up Le Beau in 2020.

Fun fact: Beau means beautiful in French. The name “Le Beau” was born during Chef’s Olga’s time in Paris while she was soaking in all the beauty that Paris has to offer.

With a clean, bright and minimalist interior design, it’s the perfect little spot to relax and enjoy a nice treat. There’s no shame in a little self love. What better way to do that than with some amazing food made from quality ingredients.

Even just the plain butter croissant here is enough to make you come back for more. This year alone they came up with over 200 croissant flavours! In addition to the impressive repertoire of croissants and laminated dough, Le Beau also offers a variety of chocolates, cakes, tarts and beverages.

I like to try a new item each time I visit Le Beau. So far, everything’s been spot on!

The Calamansi is essentially a lemon tart. The filling is tart and refreshing. The shell is a pate sable that is crispy and cookie-like. It’s topped with a fresh and creamy vanilla truffle.

Anytime I hear “limited quantities” I feel the need to stock up. If only I can stock up on these amazing ice kouign sandwiches. Kouign is pronounced as “queen”.

Kouign Amann is similar to a croissant but sweeter! It’s baked in a special mold and the caramelized sugar coating gives it a nice crunchy texture.

For the ice kouign sandwich, the kouign amann is still warm, and the gelato is made in house. This is only available on weekends and the gelato flavours may vary. The one in the picture is with strawberry gelato.

Le Beau may be famous for their croissants and the Kouign Amann, but every time I visit Le Beau, I have to get a mini citrus travel cake. To me, it feels like a combination of a madeleine and pound cake. I love how you can really taste the refreshing citrus flavour. The texture of the poppy seeds also add a nice contrast to the moist and buttery cake.

With such a large selection of amazing pastries, multiple visits are definitely required to try them all!

Roselle

Definitely one of my favourite bakeries in Toronto since it opened in 2015. Whenever I have friends visiting from out of town, this is always one of the spots I take them to as a must try.

Roselle offers a variety of cakes, eclairs, cookies, chocolates, pavlova and so much more! They work with fresh and quality ingredients, this includes working with fruits from our Ontario farms. They often have rotational treats depending on the seasonal fruits. Strawberry season is my favourite!

It was love at first bite with their earl grey “shorties”. The smooth and silky ganache with pieces of candied orange is sandwiched between earl grey shortbread cookies. Who knew the secret to making shortbread cookies even better is to turn it into a shortbread sandwich!

I never leave Roselle without at least a few madeleines. These buttery cakes are the perfect little treats. There are a few flavours to pick from:

• Lemon glazed

• Earl grey peach glazed

• Strawberry lemonade (seasonal)

The earl grey soft serve is definitely a must try for all earl grey lovers out there. This creamy and fragrant soft serve is so light and refreshing.

The “next level” soft serve includes: white chocolate crispy pearls, injected with house made lemon cream and a mini earl grey shortie.

Location: 362 King St. E, Toronto, ON, M5A 1K9

My top 5 doughnut places in the GTA

I’m no doughnut expert but I’ve had my fair share of doughnuts!  Having worked at a doughnut eatery means I’ve had days where I had doughnuts for breakfast, lunch AND dinner. I like to think that I’ve become quite the doughnut connoisseur.

My doughnut criteria: 

1. Dough - I prefer yeast doughnuts over cake doughnuts and I like them light and fluffy.  

2. Glaze/filling - There’s nothing more disappointing than a “filled” doughnut with only a small dollop of filling or an overly sweet glaze to overpower the doughnut. 

3. “Wow” factor - I know “taste is king” but I love a good looking doughnut!  

Toronto has no shortage of doughnut eateries but the list below are my top 5 favourite places. Trust me, they donut disappoint! 

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1. Isabella’s Mochi Donuts  

📍2066 Queen St E, Toronto, ON M4E 1C9

📍4 St Patrick St, Toronto, ON M5V 1Z1

I am absolutely obsessed with mochi doughnuts. The mochi makes the doughnuts extra chewy, but in a good way. Isabella’s has such unique rotational flavours including, but not limited to: hojicha crunch, cinnamon roll, pandan, black sesame and many many more!

I don’t know what kind of magic goes into making these mochi doughnuts but they are done so perfectly that it doesn’t feel oily or greasy. Even after eating 2 in a row I still got room for more.

There’s also a fun factor involved with these. The OCD part of me loves that it’s shaped in little tiny bubbles so I can eat them in a organized way. Everything about these mochi doughnuts are just pure perfection.

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2. Glory Hole Doughnuts

 📍1596 Queen St W, Toronto, ON M6R 1A8

📍1505 Gerrard St E, Toronto, ON M4L 2A4

I cannot gush about these doughnuts enough. I commute a good hour to get myself here when I’m craving a nice pillowy doughnut. They never disappoint. They are perfectly glazed and not overly sweet that I feel the need to chug a bottle of water after eating them. 

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3. Dipped Donut 

 📍161 Baldwin St #1, Toronto, ON M5T 1L9

These doughnuts are humongo and the perfect sharing size (if you’re not a greedy porky like me that just ate everything by myself). In my defence, the dough here is so light and fluffy you can easily polish one off without feeling the weight and silent judgement of food baby. 

Dipped donuts are always coming out with new flavours! They offer some unique flavours such as, black sesame matcha, lemon lavender, pistachio rose water, etc. My personal favourite here is the London Fog. I love a good Earl Grey flavored treat!

Here we have the cookies & cream and my personal favourite, london fog. I do love how the cookies and cream one is actually a cream cheese glaze though. Yum!

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4. Cops  

📍445 Adelaide St W, Toronto, ON M5V 1T1

Good things come in small packages is definitely an accurate depiction here. These little guys are amazing! The doughnuts here are made fresh to order and there’s nothing like a fresh out of the fryer doughnut. The signature flavour is the cinnamon sugar and they offer rotational glazed flavours. I love the matcha coconut one! 

For such mini doughnuts they sure leave a big impression!  

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5. Von Doughnuts

📍713 Danforth Ave, Toronto, ON M4J 1L2

Von Doughnut offers “grown up” doughnuts with a nice little kick to it. The “One Night Stand” has a tequila glaze, and the “Sangria” uses a red/white wine sangria glaze.

My personal favourite(s) are their filled doughnuts. The creme brûlée doughnut is filled with an amazing vanilla bean pastry cream. The “Pucker Up Sucker” is basically a lemon meringue doughnut with a yummy lemon custard. The doughnut to filling ratio is perfect and even with the filling, it’s still not overly sweet.

Check out their doughnut chart online to make sure your flavour is available that day because they rotate their doughnut flavours daily.

Yang’s Braised Chicken Rice

With over 6,000 locations around the world, Yang’s Braised Chicken Rice is one of China’s biggest food chains and they’re now available in Canada! They recently opened several new locations in Ontario. Check out their website to find a location near you!

Website: http://yangschicken.ca

Yang’s Braised Chicken Rice actually really reminds me of a hearty home cooked meal. My mom is a huge fan of one pot cooking so this is definitely something I’m familiar with.

The portions at Yang’s Braised Chicken Rice are humongo. I got two meals out of this one meal combo! The chicken is marinated all the way through and so tender. My favourite part is the sauce and this one pot wonder is oh so saucy. I drizzled the sauce on my rice so each bite is full of flavour. Yang’s Chinese chicken pot recipe has been around since the 1830s, passed down from generation to generation. The chicken here is braised daily at the restaurant and each order only takes five to nine minutes to prepare. It’s the perfect quick, healthy and delicious meal if you’re under a time crunch!

Yang’s Braised Chicken Rice may be famous for their signature braised chicken and rice, but I was actually really impressed with their cucumber salad. It sounds simple, but it’s so refreshing and such a nice pairing to the braised chicken and rice. This is something my grandma used to make as a side dish too! There are lots of side dishes to pick from the menu so I definitely recommend trying them out too.

Yunshang Rice Noodle x SickKids

Sometimes I get caught up in the daily grind of things and forget just how lucky I am to be here, to be healthy and to be surrounded by some truly amazing people in my life. 

I had a lot of health issues when I was a kid. I still remember being in and out of the hospital with my mom and how scary all the wires and machines were. I was fortunate enough to have access to great medical care and I’m now able to enjoy all these food adventures and explore the world, one restaurant at a time.

SickKids is an amazing hospital that not only takes care of the kids, but they also provide comfort and support to the parents and family of the kids going through treatment. 

The founder of Yunshang Rice Noodle is a regular donor to SickKids. His son was only one year old when he was rushed to SickKids to receive treatment. He was able to make a full recovery thanks to the incredible team at SickKids. The founder is committed to giving back to this incredible organization and is passionate about bringing awareness to the important issues plaguing the health of children, and becoming educated in helping an organization that does so much for children and their families.

On July 7th 2019, the beloved Chinese rice noodle brand, Yunshang, will launch a “Pay-What-You-Can” campaign in support of SickKids to build a new hospital!

An exclusive “Support-SickKids Menu” will be available at all Yunshang locations in the GTA on July 7th. Guests are encouraged to come to any Yunshang store, order whatever they like on the menu, and pay what they can. 100% of the proceeds collected that day will go to support SickKids Foundation. Besides helping to provide children with access to high quality healthcare, this campaign will hopefully end hunger in the city even if it’s for one day. 

I’m such a fan of the rice noodles and the different broths here (the tomato soup is my favourite).

The broth itself is made from scratch daily with Canadian sourced ingredients. It’s simmered for at least 12 hours with pork, chicken AND beef bones to really get the flavourful broth without the use of MSG.

Each noodle set comes with a variety of sides dishes that are served in a cute little bento style box. I love the quail eggs and the fish tofu. The noodle set really is a full meal once you add in all the side dishes.

This exclusive “Support-SickKids Menu” at Yunshang offers a cold dish/appetizer and a drink in addition to the rice noodle set. An amazing meal for an amazing cause!

Yunshang stores open at 12PM and this campaign is for dine-in only. Remember to come early on July 7th and celebrate the day for a good cause!

For more about this great causes check out: http://yunshang.ca/sickkids_en.html

Sakura season at Cheese Garden

It’s Sakura (aka cherry blossom) season at Cheese Garden! 

Sakura’s actually one of my favourite flowers. I love the subtle pink (my favourite colour) and the cute little petals. It’s a symbolic flower of Spring, which is also my birthday season. Needless to say, when I heard Cheese Garden came out with their Sakura Spring Collection, I just had to try it!

Featuring Japanese Sakura from Kanagawa, this beautiful Sakura dessert set comes with:

1 Sakura Fraise Cheesecake

2 pieces of Sakura Yakigashi

1 Sakura Raindrop Cake

1 exclusive Sakura spoon and Sakura bag as free gifts (SO cute!)

I love the different layers of the Sakura fraise cheesecake. The cake consists of the following layers: Sakura mizu yokan, custard pudding, Sakura jam, no bake strawberry cheesecake and matcha sponge cake. The matcha sponge cake and the strawberry cheesecake go so well together! I like that the Sakura wasn’t over powering so I got to really enjoy all the different flavours.

The Sakura Yakigashi is my favourite from the dessert set. This Sakura and cranberry cookie bar is as yummy as it is beautiful. The toasted pistachios adds a nice crunch and the marshmallows gives it a nice chewy texture and added sweetness.

If only raindrops can be as beautiful as Cheese Garden’s Sakura raindrop cake then maybe I’d enjoy rainy days more. The texture of this raindrop cake reminds me of jello and it has a very distinct Sakura flavour. I can’t get over the beautiful flower sitting perfectly in the “raindrop”. It’s almost too pretty to eat!

This new and limited Sakura Spring Collection is only available from now to May 12th!

Only 50 Sakura Spring Collections are available per day at each location and limited to 1 set per customer (no reservation, first come first serve).

Available at all Cheese Garden locations: 

 📍5291 Yonge St

📍Unit G120 - 3250 Midland Ave. 

📍B58 - 4300 Steeles Ave. E (Pacific Mall) 

📍Saks Fifth Ave. Pop-up store, 176 Yonge St.  

Website:  http://www.cheesegarden.ca/