T.O.bites | Toronto Food & Restaurant Blog

4.5 bites out of 5

This post is kind of bitter-sweet, being that the location where Menchie’s is now used to be where T-Cafe sat in the annex.  The once dank spot against the exposed brick wall where I used to study while eating tapas is now dressed with photos of celebrities eating their frozen yogurt concoctions.  It’s incredibly tacky, but I also happen to love tackiness.

Menchie’s is a popular chain American chain which originated from the west coast (where they love their frozen yogurt) and has been spreading throughout the states like wildfire.  Much like a few other popular frozen dessert chains from the states, Menchie’s has now hit Canada, opening up in the Annex neighbourhood, which is already saturated by excellent dessert places such as Greg’s and Future’s.

The unique thing about Menchie’s is that you get to concoct your own yogurt creation and can do whatever you like with it.  First, you start off by grabbing a cup (or a waffle cone in a cup which is $1.00 extra) and you head right over to the yogurt machines.  There’s a huge variety of flavors.  Some of which I never knew existed in frozen yogurt form.  For example, there’s banana bread yogurt, and cookie batter too.  Plus they have the usual choices, strawberry, vanilla and chocolate.  For my own experiment, I decided to try regular tart and tart apple flavors as my yogurt base.   After you’re done filling your cup, you can shift on over to the toppings base, and feel free to go wild.  There’s all the staples of toppings such as chocolate chips, peanuts, and a variety of fruit, plus there’s some unique ones too such as klodhoppers.  Next to the fruit, there’s a few choices of syrup, but seeing as how my creation was already filled with a bunch of random toppings, I thought none of the sauces would go too well with the mix.

My cup, which was about half filled, came to $4.00.  Your creation is weighted upon completion and you’re charged 49cents an ounce, plus taxes.  Apparently the cups can hold 16 ounces of yogurt, and since the yogurt appeared to be the most heaviest ingredient, just be careful how much you fill up.  I can easily see someone going crazy and end up spending $20 on one cup.

not the most appetizing looking thing, but it was good!

Thanks to the huge variety of yogurt flavours and toppings, I definitely see myself returning to Menchie’s in the future.  I can’t wait to try a pina colada frozen yogurt mixed with oreos and mangoes.

Ed's Real Scoop

The Beach and ice cream go hand in hand like gentrification and a Starbucks. For years, I used to head to Baskin Robbins or Lick’s to get my ice cream fix in the beaches even if it meant eating rock hard freezer burnt stuff.  But ever since I’ve discovered Ed’s Real Scoop with it’s excellent hand made ice cream, I haven’t looked back and now realize it’s worth the walk all the way to the other end of Queen street east just to get one of Ed’s really good scoops.

Ed’s is a taste of nostalgia from the old time ice cream parlours right down to the smell of waffle cones being made in the corner by Ed himself. The great thing about Ed’s is if you go everyday, besides having me become envious, you would never find the exact same selection of flavours.  Infact on most days you’ll almost always find a new flavour there, and they’re also open to new flavour suggestions.

Roasted Marshmellow

On this warm summer afternoon, after spending a whole 8 minutes trying to decide on which flavour I wanted (I did narrow it down to 5), I ended up going with the roasted marshmellow flavour for the purposes of writing on site.  Why?  Because if you’ve ever read my post over at Urban Pill, you’d know that I am in absolute love with the roasted marshmellow flavor from Greg’s Ice Cream in the annex.  This gave me a bit of something to draw a bit of a comparison.  Though Greg’s marshmellow ice cream will always be my favorite, Ed’s version was pretty darn good on it’s own.  Though it did indeed taste like melted marshmellows, it lacked the smokiness of Greg’s version.  But what it did have that Greg’s doesn’t is a nice swirl of caramel mixed in.

Although Ed’s beaches shop is a bit further away from the hustle and bustle of the Woodbine section of Queen street, it is definitely worth the 5 minute streetcar ride down to the end of the tracks to get a lick or two.  There is another one right in the heart of Leslieville also on Queen street between Carlaw and Logan so if the other one is a wee bit out of the way, then hopefully the Leslieville one will be easier to get to.