Sausage and Egg Muffin at Emmer is $10 before tax and tip
I had 5 savouries from the Columbus bakery near Lady York on Dufferin: 2 empanadas, 1 cassava cheese pastry, 1 cheese buñuelo/ball, and 1 cheese stick wrapped in dough, and the total was $11.42 including tip. https://columbuswholesale.com/
Same types of prices at Ave Maria on Bloor west of Bathurst.
Photo from Ave Maria
Curious about the Filipino chain Jollibee since it came to Toronto and needing a quick lunch while we were near the Yonge and Broadway location, we stopped in.
Since their fried chicken is one of their calling cards, we tried the Spicy Chicken Sandwich ($8.49):
Of course the other thing we had to try is the Jolly Spaghetti ($7.99):
The carrot cake which is like lo bak go / turnip cake at Kiss My Pans is $12 before tax and tip, $2 extras for sambal.
Tamago sando (soft yolk egg salad) from Ohiru. $15 plus tax. Lots of food. They put some seaweed seasoning on the fries which I didn’t expect but I got used to.
I paid $21.99 for a cheeseburger with an $4.99 upgrade to a Caesar salad before tax at the Duke of York yesterday, and $21 before tax for a 13 inch 3 topping pizza at Blondie’s on Friday, to put this $15 brunch main at Ohiru into downtown Toronto lower end meal context.
Everything else on the menu is over $15, in the more typical brunch range of $17- $25 before tax, since the other proteins cost more than eggs.
I would gladly pay 2x for that.
I tried the $14 butter chicken and rice combo at Mannat on College near Dufferin tonight. I liked it.
I got take-out. The restaurant was pretty busy for a Wed at 10 pm.
I haven’t tried the Hakka dishes.
Eataly has figured out the psychological price ceilings. Almost everything is $X.90. 
My $13.90 Cdn hot, grilled Mortadella and Artichoke Panini.
I like the cold paninis better. This was too salty and too greasy for me. I finished it, of course.
I like the cold prosciutto crudo, which is also $13.90 before tax.
The $6.50 Crème Caramel at Bakery Pompette. Decadence.
Anything else you try there?
Open about 4 months now?
I have been twice in the past 6 weeks and will be returning soon.
The leek and goat cheese quiche is excellent. They have a lot of interesting savoury croissants and danishes. The loaf cakes are good. They have madeleines.
Their breads look good, but they all have a hard crust and I’m currently more into softer crust breads.
Definitely also check out Bricolage (further west of Little Italy ) and Kiss My Pans (College and Manning ) when you visit College St.
The baby OG veal sandwich at San Francesco is around $7.50 plus tax. I think the baby eggplant is $7 before tax.
The regular size is around $11 before tax.
This was my first San Francesco veal sandwich. It was okay. It was certainly filling. https://sanfrancescos.com/menu/
I used to get the mini size or regular size veal or eggplant sandwich at the California Sandwiches on Yonge or Dufferin.
The San Francesco on Clinton only had one young man working. The California sandwiches nearby was quite a bit busier. I will stop by to compare in a few months.
I like San Francesco - they were my first veal sandwich. I also like California and Mustachio’s in the St. Lawrence Market.
With the closing of Rose’s, we lost our go-to banh mi option. So we finally decided to try Banh Mi Huy-Ki, on Gerrard near Jones. We sampled the assorted and the meatball. Each was $5 (cash only).
Our overall assessment: not bad but not as good as Rose’s. The sandwiches were a little lighter on the vegetable garnishes (carrot and daikon mix, cucumber, fresh cilantro). The sliced meats were fine, but the meatball was a bit blander.
We’ll try them again, mainly because I think they are our only local option. But we may travel further afield as we are aware that other places are favoured by various of you.
$9 breakfast sandwich at Hamers Coffee on Dundas W at Manning. They call this their Classic Western.
Not really a Western aka a Denver, but an excellent breakfast sandwich with Manchego omelette and prosciutto.
Some rotisserie birds any Sanagan’s Meat Locker cost less than $15. They are sold by weight. My chicken yesterday cost $13.98.
I’ve only been to eat at Eataly in Italy (Torino - three locations) and was never seriously impressed. I’ve window shopped in the London Eataly, but I have a gift certificate for the Toronto one. What’s most reliable there?
I mostly get the pizza slices, the foccaccia, the pastries, pesto, pasta sauce, packaged imported goods, the panini from the Gran Caffe on the ground floor, pastries, tortes and the ready-to-eat salads and thebheat-at-home refrigerated meals (eggplant parm, pastas, chicken valdostana, gnocchis).
The salads from the pizza and pasta restaurant aren’t that great. I liked one dine-in seafood pasta in 2020, but found one take-out pasta from the pizza and pasta restaurant mediocre last year.
In the Gran Caffe, I also get coffee, and this time of year they have crema di caffe, which is a frozen sweet coffee cream, which is nice (Sud Forno also has a Crema di Caffe now). I also enjoyed the cherry granita from the Gran Caffe last month.
I have often posted some photos of my Eataly take-out on the takeout thread.
I have been to the Eataly in New York near 23rd St.
I didn’t bother visiting the Eataly in Munich, Rome or London pre-pandemic.
It is essentially a grocery store for me. I don’t got there for the dine-in restaurants.
It also was 3 blocks from where I lived, and open until 10 pm, so it has been the place for a healthier takeout meal over the last 3 1/2 years. Most restaurants in Yorkville and the Annex don’t offer take-out after 9 pm.
Now that I don’t live close to Eataly, I will be getting more upscale Italian take-out from Barocco x Nino, which is a venture by Barocco coffee and Nino D’Aversa Bakery, and Alimentari on Roncesvalles.
The heat at home lasagna from Barocco x Nino was very good (Tavola on the label, prob the same at the other Nino D’Aversa locations) was a little less rich than Eataly’s refrigerated lasagna. Very good. Barocco x Nino have around 5 Roman pizzas by the slice during the day. I tried the Calabrese slice and Artichoke slice last week.
Alimentari has good meatballs and good eggplant parm. I haven’t tried other food from their hot table yet.
Sadly, Centro Formaggio e Trattoria closed on St Clair W. In terms of hot tables, it looks like Eataly, Alimentari and Barocco x Nino, along with the old school bakeries like Tre Mari, San Remo, various other bakeries in Scarborough and Mississauga, are the main places for Italian hot tables now.
I’ve always found Nino D’Aversa breads to have too many chemicals and not enough flavour. When I’m shopping at Highland Farms, I buy anything Trigo Bakery. Great depth of flavour and texture. It’s perfect on its own or as a platform.
Perhaps one of your grocers carries it.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Chn1D7Fr777
I haven’t tried their breads, just the Roman pizza al taglio, and it might be different at the relatively bougie Barocco X Nino. I’m not sure. I haven’t been inside a Nino D’Aversa bakery in a decade.
Thanks for the tip! I haven’t seen Trigo Bakery at Fiesta Farms (my go-to) or the Little Italy Metro, but I will keep my eyes peeled.
I am closer to Little Italy now, so the crusty French bread local source is Bakery Pompette. I haven’t tried the Italian bread at Riviera or Golden Wheat yet.
A couple Portuguese bakeries on College Street have closed over the last 5 years, and I haven’t tried any breads at the Portuguese bakeries still operating on Dundas St.
Annex Espresso Bar is a newish coffee shop that opened in April, that sells 4 different sandwiches made with Brodflour bread, as well as bigne (Italian for beignet- it looks like an Krapfen or Paçzki) and croissants. I’m not sure if there’s a difference in Italy between bigne and bombolone donuts. I will say this bigne had more filling, and the dough was nicer than the Bombolone I have ordered at Bar Centrale at Yonge & Price, or Eataly.
The Sfilatino prosciutto sandwich was $9.99. I like less bread : more fillings than this, but it was good.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CtuXwJ8OlPB/?igshid=YzcxN2Q2NzY0OA==
On Bathurst south of the new Mirvish condos, north of Harbord, west side. The owner had worked at Sud Forno before opening Annex Espresso Bar. 4 seats available on the sidewalk.
The $6 raspberry bigne, a raspberry jam donut coated in superfine or granulated sugar, with a generous very seedy raspberry jam filling, was very good. Better than most Paçzki. It tasted more like a European donut than the fancy type $4 donuts found at Glory Hole. Annex Espresso Bar also has bigne that are coated in sugar, but not filled with jelly or jam.
@Phoenikia we must be fairly close to each other. I have noticed Mannat. I’m not able to manage the fiery spices I used to but I long for a good curry, and dhal makhani, the baigan, and if they have bindhi, I’m in! The other day, when the streetcar was taking its sweet time, a lovely bakery smell wafted over and I’d skipped breakfast. The smell was coming from Janelle’s and I was intrigued to see ‘And Southern Accent’ (used to LOVE going there) so I went in and got some blackening spices and asked for a scone. Janelle was very friendly and the whole place felt so cosy and home-like that I’d love to go back. I asked Janelle why Southern Accent,. She explained that they used to be next door (I’d missed that era!) and befriended her but hadn’t survived Covid. Anyway, the scone was warm and delicious and I have to use those spices soon. Has anyone eaten at Janelle’s?
