Hoof Café…is back!

A part of me felt irrationally sad when Hoof Café closed two years ago. With it went the bone marrow doughnuts, foie gras brioche French toasts, beef tongue grilled cheese, pig tails and grits, and all the dishes that made weekend brunch in Toronto exciting and different. It had the charm of robust Quebec, think Martin Picard’s Pied De Cochon and Sugar Shack, combined with a definite Anglo coolness of Queen West hipsters. Needless to say, the lines were long, space tight, and the service harried.

When Jen Agg announced that Hoof Café was back with a new menu, I made it a point to go the next weekend.

We ordered the Fried sweetbreads and waffles (savoury and sweet combo with a green onion waffle and a maple sriracha sauce), Breakfast cassoulet (a heifer of a dish: breakfast sausage, pork belly, duck egg, crispy kale, beans), and  a side of  Hash browns (crisp exterior with chewy interior, the flavours akin to salt and vinegar chips). It was belly-filling. It was rich. It was good.

I already have plans to go back again to try the Bombay hash. (We don’t know what the Bombay hash is either, perhaps a colonial breakfast variation on Mumbai hash? Didn’t mean to inject politics into this as Bombay/Mumbai is a bit of loaded topic, isn’t it? Yikes. But hey, politics make for exciting conversation over brunch though.)

Hoof Café
926 Dundas Street West | Website

New York City, Day 2 (Part 3): Pies’n'Thighs, Brooklyn

Late lunch done well at Pies’n'Thighs. We had the Chicken & Waffles, Biscuit, Chicken & Grits, a doughnut and a deep fried apple pie. We couldn’t finish all our food and ended up packing two pieces of chicken and a waffle to go….and ended up having it for dinner with a baguette in our hostel. Vive la belle vie?

Pies’n'Thighs
166 S 4th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn | Website | Yelp

Brunch at Saving Grace

Saving Grace is a small, unassuming space with great light, good food and decent service. Their French Toasts with Carmelized Bananas was absolutely sinful and oozing with gooey carmelized sugar. Leo thinks the bread could have been more eggy, but other than that, it’s one of the best french toasts I’ve had (other than Leo’s…of course!). The waffles & eggs were pretty good and the bacon was a bit sparse, but that’s usually how it goes. Disappointments were the New Zealand lamb sausage, which was dry and dense, and the bland, watered down mochaccino.

Saving Grace
907 Dundas St W Toronto | yelp