T.O.bites | Toronto Food & Restaurant Blog

This is a slightly different edition of Food injustice today as I’ve been given permission to share this story from another food blogger.  It comes from the author over at I go eat.  The author and his friends went out for bubble tea and desserts at Go For Tea, a tea cafe type joint up near Ellesmere Rd and Midland Ave.  When they first called to arrange reservations, they were told that they’d be slapped with a $6.99 reservation fee due to the long weekend.  Wait, reservation fee?  Are they getting a mortgage or going out to eat?

And that’s just the icing on the cake.  Upon asking for a refill of his chrysanthemum tea, Mr. I go eat noticed that there was a snail inside the cup.  Upon which he called to the waitress’ attention:

I show her and instead of an apology she simply said: “ Oh that’s so cute”

Although it’s not uncommon for snails to be perched and sliming their way across chrysanthemum leaves, it is pretty bad that it managed to make it’s way into the tea, leaving me to believe that they probably didn’t wash the flower enough before placing it in the tea cup.

In my own personal experience, every time I go to a tea shop out in the Scarborough area for bubble tea, I’m usually greeted with waitresses who care more about their makeup than my patronage.

To read how this food injustice ended, head on over to I go eat’s blog for the rest of the story.

I come here writing tonight to update you about a Food Injustice that happened last week.  Normally, I don’t feel too compelled to write a whole new post about the situation as I could just easily append the update to the bottom of the previous post.  But this situation is more personal to me than most as this affects a sweet 4 year old’s birthday.  Also, this takes place in the neighbourhood I grew up in, Leslieville, where I’m usually 100% supportive of local businesses and I love the gentrification and changes that have been going on.  The residents actually went and started a huge petition just to try and prevent the proposed WalMart from being built to protect their local businesses.  And if my website stats are correct, this is the most linked and followed story on my website for the week, so it deserves its own posted update.

the virgin cake... this is what $90 gets you?!

Food complaints happen every day.  I’m sure right now somewhere in our city, someone is at a McDonald’s complaining to the poor underpaid cashier that his fries are too salty.  In most cases if the food’s not eaten (yes, yes, I’ve read your e-mails about that), then most places will gladly replace it or take it back and off the bill.  But even in a few extreme cases where the food was completely eaten but the patron was left unsatisfied, they will either be offered a discount or given “free dessert”.  This usually works in two ways as the patron feels much better about their experience, and the restaurant has just saved themselves from poor word of mouth, and possibly has a returning customer too.  I can name a few places where I’ve had a generally poor food experience, but the manager has tried to make it better, and I usually do go back knowing that they care about what it is their customers take home to share with their family and friends.  A great example of this is Caplansky’s Deli and how, when present, Caplansky will go around and ask for feedback and if someone tells him truthfully that they disliked their meal and why, they’d be compensated.

When it comes to It’s the Icing on the Cake, sadly, it appears they don’t worry too much once the cash is in the register.  But here’s where the situation gets a bit sticky.  Jenn (Amber’s mother) did willingly take the cake when she was shown it, and I know this is causing a bit of a debate about who’s right or wrong in this situation.  The way the pickup was scheduled, right before the party was to start, so there was already a pouring in of children into her household while she was heading down the street to grab her cake.  So she had little choice and time, and took the cake.  She did express her concern when she picked it up but was told that there wasn’t anything they could do, and that the owners were away.  Taking the cake and not demanding her money back may have been a mistake but I feel this is besides the point.

My point is, and always has been, that the cake pictured above cost $90.  Ninety freekin bucks!  No one would order a cake for $90 if they knew it was going to be the above.  Literally a pound of cake mix, some icing, and a Hannah Montana’s logo with a giant star.  A normal Loblaws bakery decorator could have that design frosted on in less than 5 minutes.  That was not the cake Jenn was originally told and shown photos of what she was getting.  The cake was supposed to be two-tiered, with the bottom tier being like the picture above, and a second tier being a star shaped cake.  This would make more sense at costing $90 then what she actually got.

As you may have guessed, Jenn did finally speak to the owner of It’s the Icing on the Cake, and was told “well it’s too bad because you took the cake”.  There was no offer to help try and fix the situation.  Heck, not even a few free cupcakes!  So I end this Food Injustice on a sad and cliché note: buyer beware, as some things you pay for will not always be what you expect.

Sometimes people will have great experiences at one place, while others will have a horrible time.  Four times out of five, if the managers hear about your experience, they’ll usually do something to help you out and make your experience better.  At most food places, they’ll do this by offering to remove the item off of your bill, exchange it for something else, or give you your next meal free of charge.  Hopefully this story will have such an ending.

My niece recently celebrated her 4th birthday and earlier today happened to be her party.  It’s been a long time in the planning and her mother decided to keep it local and order the cake from It’s the Icing on the Cake located near Queen and Leslie.  As you can see, this place generally has positive reviews aside from the odd bad apple experience.  When they ordered her cake, they were shown an example of a two-tiered Hannah Montana themed cake, complete with stars, guitars, and all things that would make any 4 year old fan beam a huge smile (thanks to the Walt Disney Co. marketing department).  The bottom tier to be a giant slab of white cake with a icing star on it, the top tier to be star shaped with the Hannah Montana logo on it next to the usual “Happy Birthday Amber”.  They were quoted $90 for the whole thing, which was pretty reasonable for two-tiered cake.

The $90 Hannah Montana Cake

As you can see above, there was no second-tier to this cake.  And the designs which were supposed to be on the second-tier seemed to have dropped down to the bottom single-tier cake.  Oh, mind the clutter on the cake.  The necklace, slapbands, figures and buttons were added last minute to help salvage the cake and put a bit of a smile on Amber’s face, even at the expense of making it look like Hannah Montana threw up on it.  Still, it looked better than what it originally did even with all the excess paraphernalia.

Maybe they were in a bit of a hurry and decided to not add the second-tier.  No problem except for the fact that $90 was paid for this cake, which had nothing over a $25 cake made at Loblaws.  Apparently when her parents went to go pick up the cake this morning, they were told that the cook who designed the cake wasn’t in today and the owner of the bakery was off as well and couldn’t be contacted until Monday (tomorrow, which is why hopefully there will be a future update to this).

It's the Icing on the Cake but apparently not in the middle

Now onto the cake itself.  How can I put this lightly?  If I was blindfolded and fed this cake, I would believe it was nothing more than a piece of the generic ‘keep in your freezer’ Sara Lee pound cake.  I haven’t seen a single layered birthday cake since my mom made her own cake courtesy of Betty Crocker.  The icing also had a very interesting after taste, that of sour milk.  Not sure how that’s possible as icing is usually powdered icing sugar and water.  Poor Amber didn’t really like the taste of her cake, and her mom was left feeling ripped off having paid $90 for this slab of baked flour, sugar, and milk.  You may ask why her mom left with the cake and didn’t refuse the purchase.  Well the fact that it was an hour before her party began left little time to hop over to the Loblaws and pick up another cake.  Tomorrow the manager will be contacted so hopefully we can find out what happened to the second-tier.