Toronto Doughnuts: Mini Doughnuts at Little Nicky’s Coffee

Our Homer’s Odyssey into Toronto’s doughnuts continues…

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Do you remember the first time you had Tiny Tom Donuts? I can, it was at CNE and while I haven’t actually been to the Ex in years, there will always be a fairly substantial part of my heart devoted to baby doughnuts that come into the world via conveyor belt. So, imagine my delight when Little Nicky’s set up shop back in 2010 and we all started enjoying their mini doughnuts made bar-top for all to see (and smell). The best seat in the house actually faces the “donut robot” that sends piping hot doughnuts tumbling towards you straight out of the fryer. They’re made to order, tossed in cinnamon sugar and served hot. True to form, Little Nicky’s has bucked the trend of specialty doughnut shops that constantly experiment with new/innovative flavours because sometimes all you want is something simple and perfect to dip in your coffee. If only they had endless batter and longer hours (till 6pm daily and closed Sundays), I might sit by the fryer and fade away like Degas’ absinthe lady. Mini doughnuts are $2.75 for six, $4 for a dozen.

More Toronto Doughnuts: Bake Lab / Benna’s Bakery & Deli / Bonjour Brioche / Caldense Bakery /Glory Hole / Mexi-Can Market / Nova Era Bakery / Paulette’s Original Donuts and Chicken / Venezia Bakery

Little Nicky’s Coffee
375 Queen St. W. | Yelp

Jittery John’s Cold Brew Coffee

One of the silver linings in having friends and family move abroad is the exchanges that take place whenever they return home on visits. My cousin, who recently expatriated to San Francisco, smuggled back a bottle of the liquid gold that is Jittery John’s Cold Brew coffee. If you’re skeptical about New Orleans style coffee that’s “handcrafted since just recently” in San Francisco, JJ’s is as rich, smooth, strong, and delicious as billed – and the chicory accent is something I can get used to. Fun fact:  chicory root is a common coffee substitute in US prisons, a tradition that dates back to the American civil war!

Yashica FX-7

Jittery John’s Cold Brew Coffee
San Fransisco CA | Twitter | Fb

Instagrammies: A reading list

I used to read a lot. YA novels mostly. Usually sci-fi/fantasy (Diana Wynne Jones), and perhaps a bit of fanfiction here and there.

One summer I decided to only read Jane Austen; I managed to get through Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Persuasion (which is my favourite so far), but I abandoned Mansfield Park after one chapter. I have George Eliot’s Middlemarch still sitting on my bookshelf for the past eight years (I pride my sixteen year old self for having tried at least!), but it’s on my list of Great English Novels to read along Wuthering Heights (ack, who else hasn’t read it yet?), Tess of the d’Urbervilles, and probably everything Dickens ever wrote.

Anyway! This summer I thought I’d try to read a bit more, by which I mean to just read in general. There was no specific criteria, I picked whatever I felt like reading. So, here is what I’ve enjoyed:

American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld
Last Night in Twisted River by John Irving
Little Children by Tom Perrota
NW by Zadie Smith
Changing my Mind by Zadie Smith – my favourite essay of the bunch was Dead Man Laughing, written for the New Yorker (I must have read it like five times by now)
Days of Reading (abridged) by Marcel Proust

For some inspired culinary travels:
Passage to the Amazon by Neide Rigo for Saveur Magazine
Danny Bowien Does Chengdu by Andrew Knowlton for Bon Appetit

If you get the chance, definitely go check these out of the library.

Next summer might be a Kafka affair or maybe Nabokov?

Happy Friday!

Toronto Doughnuts: Paulette’s Original Donuts and Chicken

Our Homer’s Odyssey into Toronto’s doughnuts continues…

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Paulette’s makes donuts, they fry chicken, and they recently won 86′d Mondays‘ “ultimate donut battle” at the Drake Hotel. No small feat, considering they were competing against the likes of Glory Hole, Dough by Rachelle, Bestellen, and Sweet Escape Patisserie. Paulette’s blueberry balsamic doughnut was the crowd-pleasing favourite of the night, with the winner declared based on popular vote after rounds and rounds of doughnuts were consumed by a very packed house. We will summarily describe the event as a Homer Simpson fantasy come to life. But for those that missed it, Paulette’s doughnuts are available Tuesday through Sunday from their amazing smelling storefront in Leslieville. Pictured here are their root beet float and raspberry rose flavours from our last visit. $2.75 each.

Paulette’s Original Donuts and Chicken
913 Queen Street East | Website

More Toronto Doughnuts: Bake Lab / Bonjour Brioche / Caldense Bakery / Mexi-Can Market / Nova Era Bakery / Venezia Bakery

Montreal: Russian Doughnuts at Chez Boris

We didn’t go to Montreal in search of Russian doughnuts, but that’s exactly what we found on a weekend dedicated to joie de vivre in the City of Saints. Chez Boris is a newly opened café that specializes in freshly made Ponchiki and beignwiches (donut sandwiches) in both savoury and ice cream versions. At home between the Plateau Mont-Royal and Outremont neighbourhoods, the roomy windowed space is adorned with an easy mix of bohemian and proletarian frills. Communal tables, a used books and boardgames library, plenty of mismatched wooden chairs and free wifi all make for very inviting visits – as if the smell of piping hot doughnuts and coffee weren’t enough. The doughnuts come in a changing array of flavours and the aforementioned ice cream sandwiches are served with good old Chapman’s. We went with pumpkin spice and sugar doughnuts, our ice cream beignwich came with a warm strawberry compote. Best of all, Boris’ doughnuts are made to order and go for a mere 75 cents!

Chez Boris
5151 Avenue du Parc | Website | Yelp