I’ve been wanting to check out Lola’s Commissary for a while now, especially after reading about the “sexy potatoes” at Foodhogger.  Their weekend brunch menu was quite enticing: Cheesecake Stuffed French Toast, Egg White Frittata, Eggsmopolitan… all really excellent sounding.

Lola’s sits just south of Bloor on Church street in an old Victorian house.  A sign just before the staircase on the first floor points out that the steps are a little crooked and you should be careful when ascending them, but hey, that’s what gives the house great character along with the paintings strung up around the front dining area.

Peach Iced Tea sweetened with Maple Syrup

There was such an awesome selection of iced teas (some sweetened with maple syrup) ranging from peach to chai.  If I could remember them all, I’d list them here, but all I can remember is the peach iced tea since it’s the one I ordered.  The maple syrup really brings out the flavour of the peach in the tea and I highly recommend trying out one of the iced teas offered that are sweetened by it.

I craved the cheesecake french toast.  Alas, I refrained, because it’s a huge plate of carbs, but we did ask to find out what it was exactly.  It’s a puree’d slice of cheese cake that’s put in between two pieces of bread and done up like french toast.  Instead, I ended up going with the second most interesting sounding item on the menu – the kitchen sink.

The kitchen sink (and someone wanting to try their sexy potatoes)

The kitchen sink is described as “lots of lovely bits, scrambled eggs, cheese, toast” mind you the toast is on the side, not in the eggs.  As for those “lovely bits”, they turned out to be spinach, tomato, and possibly bacon and a few other things I couldn’t really make out.  That’s why pictures speak a thousand words.  It was quite wonderful tasting, like an amazing mash up of everything brunch.  It was a little bit runny though so those with food texture issues may want to pass on this one.

The Eggs Lola

We also ordered the Eggs Lola which was poached eggs and pulled ancho chicken on a tortilla with a side of avocado.  The ancho chicken tastes quite nice with the added flavourings on it.  One small complaint was the tortilla underneath was a bit hard, possibly from overcooking but since they’re so thin, I imagine they get hard quite fast.

Ancho Chicken Wrap

We also grabbed an ancho chicken wrap which is the same chicken from the Eggs Lola but inside of a wrap.  Each of our brunch orders came with a choice of a side of frites, sexy potatoes, or a salad.  All three of us decided on sexy potatoes (we couldn’t pass up trying them out thanks in part to the name).  The sexy potatoes are a mix of sweet potato bits with regular home style fries.  It’s great to have a mix of those two potatoes together as I love ordering sweet potato fries but often get sick of them after a few fries, so have both together was quite nice.  One small complaint was that although they were cooked and were quite browned on the outside, they were still a little soft and didn’t really have much of a crunch or crisp to them.  They were still quite good though.

I’m looking forward to returning to Lola’s again soon and will be bringing a few friends along who want to share a Cheesecake Stuffed French Toast with me.  I’ll feel a little less guilty if I’m sharing it.

I meant to post about this weeks ago but I found this quite interesting.  During the Pride festivities, they were selling frozen sorbet in a carved out fruit shell.  I remember they had lemon, coconut, and I believe pineapple but I can’t really remember.  They were $4 each though which was a bit pricey, but everything was a little overpriced on the street that day.  It ranks up almost has high as the Del Monte packaged fruit banana, but I give it points for creativity.  I haven’t seen any in any stores anywhere yet.

That said, in April VIA Rail had a promotional sale where you could go to Montreal, Ottawa, or anywhere else nearby and save up to 60% off.  So for pretty much the price of a regular economy ticket, I was able to snag a ticket in VIA’s Business Class (formerly known as Via 1 Class) for my trip to Montreal this past June.  Right when you first arrive to the station, you’ll notice the difference in classes right away.  First, you get access to the Via Rail Panorama lounge which is a waiting area that has complimentary wifi, free coffee, tea and drinks contained inside of a mini fridge, and sometimes the odd snack or two.  You can go up to about an hour before your train departs but on the way back from Montreal I went in about two hours before my departure and had no problems.  I think the sweet part of the lounge deal is that you get to sit on a nice chair before you leave and you don’t have to worry about lining up.

About an hour into your journey, you’ll be given a menu where you get to choose your main course.  The selection usually includes meat, fish, or some alternative.  I do believe they have a vegetarian option but you may need to request it in advance.  For my return trip, I chose the turkey served with mashed squash.

Before your food arrives, you’re given a small bag of pretzels or “urban mix” which is pretty much just salty chip.  Much like in airplanes, they usually serve a few salty snacks before they start serving drinks so that the alcohol doesn’t hit you as hard if you have an empty stomach.

When the food arrives, you’re first given a finely chilled tray with your dessert and appetizer on it.  That day’s dessert was sort of a mango pudding pie which was quite excellent.  The mango filling was nice and puree’d and didn’t appear to be instant pie mix.  I usually eat my dessert after my main course so it was difficult to abstain myself from eating the pie before my dinner came.  It just kept staring at me with those mango chunks on top saying “eat me”.

The appetizer was roast beef and potato salad with bacon chunks in it.  The dressing was a little on the weak and bland side but at least the potatoes were thoroughly cooked.  To be honest, I like my potato salad to be nice and mayonnaise’d up, so I’m sure people who aren’t as accustomed to over-flavoured salads would fine this one to have just the right balance of flavour.  The roast beef was excellent.  Not chewy at all and had a nice beef gravy on top of it.

The main course comes about half an hour later after they’ve refilled your drinks and taken away the appetizer plates.  The plates come piping hot like they were freshly made (or freshly reheated given the amount of space on these trains).  The turkey was nice and soft, and literally melted in your mouth.  I’m actually surprised because given that this meal was probably prepared hours earlier, it was actually like something you’d get from a nice downtown restaurant.

I would recommend trying out the VIA business class experience at least once.  Given the usual high price of it, I wouldn’t recommend taking it both ways if you’re as cheap as me, but it is a nice way to end your long trip so I do recommend you take it on your way back so you can relax and have a nice meal on the way home.

It only feels like it was just last week when Antony, Sara, and I sat down for brunch and discussed food and brunch websites.  It’s not like there was a void of decent Toronto foodie websites, but we all wanted to contribute.  The main focus was going to be on reviews, to allow me to brush up on my writing skills and learn to be more critical and subjective.  So started T.O.bites (or is it Tobites, or T.O Bites or T– heck, all forms are acceptable) with a review of Maggie’s, also considered my most controversial and incorrect in being that I gave it such a positive review but the place hasn’t been as glowing.  For the record, I do not know the owners nor am I “related” to them.  I may have been a little too easy on my first review but I did actually love the place at first.  I have been back there recently and I will agree that the quality of their food has gone down significantly.

Before I went to China and took a month long hiatus from blogging, I wrote a post about late night study places. As you may or may not know, I’m a student who happens to hang out with many grad students and we do a lot of late night studying.  This entry was actually my highest viewed/searched/googled/bing’d post for months.  Last time I went down to the Golden Griddle on College street late in the evening, there were about 6 or 7 people plugged in with their laptops working away.

The fall brought a few points of interest:  Caplansky opened up his deli and ran out of smoked meat, my niece had a birthday cake distaster thanks to one establishment’s mess-up (and consequently failing to make the situation any better), and rounded off the season with the closure of the popular New Generation Sushi in the annex due to the slaughtering of a worker from a dispute with another co-worker (beef sashimi, anyone?).

The holiday season brought together Helen and I for some cooking adventures.  First, some delicious Chai Gingerbread Cookies, and secondly the amazing Orea cookie and cream vegan cupcakes.  I also finally got around to trying out Smoke’s Poutinerie in which they were having a turkey dinner themed poutine full of gravy and cranberry sauce.. more importantly, I’m still trying to figure out whether the receipt was supposed to actually say “light cheese, bitch”.  The comma changes everything.

My friends and I had an interesting experience this January at the King Edward hotel.  I’m not so much referring to the afternoon tea (which was good) but more to the sex scandal happening in the washroom.  Though I omitted it from the initial review, we have our suspicions that it was actually an employee, possibly the female who served us who kept flirting with the bell boy, who was making the ecstatic moaning sounds.

All in all, it’s been a great year and I just wanted to thank the many countless people who’ve helped the blog be what it is today.  A big thanks goes out to all my friends who’s names I’ve mentioned (and possibly not have mentioned) in my reviews.  If I didn’t have you guys with me to tell me how good or bad what we’re eating is like, then I’m sure my blog would be more caveman like “it’s good… you go eat!”.  A special thanks to Sheryl Kirby for sending me some traffic from time to time.  Your Lucky Dip and What’s Cooking entries have really opened my eyes to how much foodie related goodness happens around our city.   Finally I’d like to thank Ashley D for letting me use her amazing photographs on many of my posts.

I’m looking forward to another year of blogging and I do apologize that the last few months have been a little lackluster due to my travel and work schedule.  Here’s to hoping that the next 12 months bring many more interesting foodie adventures for me and my friends.

Yikes!  I just arrived back from my trip to Montreal to attend Congress (with a full review of VIA’s Business class food coming up soon) to find out that one of my favorite to-go lunch spots near Bloor and Yonge, Le Gourmand Cafe, has been shut down.

There’s a small letter attached to their salad bar fridge which states that the landlord has shut them down due to defaulting on their lease agreement.  It’s funny because Le Gourmand is known among my peers for always having a lineup and they would run out of food by 3pm.  Now where will I get some of that yummy curry apple salad?  Le sigh..