Aroma Espresso Bar @ Shops at Don Mills

I remember the first time I ever tried Aroma Espresso Bar's quinoa salad from the Standard Life Building in the PATH. It was my first experience with quinoa and I was immediately a fan of quinoa (and the restaurant chain).  Aroma has expanded all across Toronto with one of the latest locations at the Shops at Don Mills:

 

Aroma Power Breakfast
Scrambled eggs, mixed cucumber, carrot and tomato salad with balsamic and whole grain toast with olives, feta cheese and avocado spread.
Wow - that is a lot of food. It was the combination of the salty feta cheese, mushy and sweet avocado spread, tangy olives and choppy scrambled eggs that I never would have worked together, but did quite well. I was so pleasantly surprised and the side cucumber and tomato salad was piled so high and the balsamic vinaigrette was so tasty. What a great healthy way to start the morning!

Shakshuka
A Tunisian breakfast with two sunny side up eggs on top of a tomato and pepper sauce and served with Tahini and whole grain bread.
You definitely don't see or hear a lot about Tunisian food in Toronto - so I was pretty excited to try this.
It was two eggs on top of a warm thick and spiced tomato broth. I wasn't sure what the proper way to eat this was - so I grabbed the toast slathered on the Tahini then scooped some egg and tomato sauce on top and tried to stuff my face. Pretty good - but it can get pretty heavy if you slather too much Tahini.

Philly Chicken half sandwich
Chicken with aroma sauce with sauteed onions, red peppers and melted swiss cheese on toasted whole grain bread
For some reason Aroma is really big on half sandwiches, and sometimes I can't complain since I get to throw two different halves to make a whole (and I get to try two different ones). I especially love the Double Up combo (mmm quinoa salad). Anyways, I love that they grill the sandwich so that the cheese melts and oozes. The sandwiches here are just really good, but I probably prefer the grilled chicken breast sandwich over the Philly Chicken - I like the whole chicken breast meat rather than the slices of chicken in the Philly.


Steak half sandwich
Steak strips with sauteed red peppers, red onions, aroma sauce and Swiss cheese on grilled whole grain bread

     
S'mores hot chocolate!
Mmm I couldn't resist! Marshmallows and cookie crumbles on top of frothed milk with thick chocolate at the bottom (that you have to stir to make your hot chocolate)? Awesome!

Overall: The food is healthy and delicious and it's made with such great quality ingredients. I feel like you can't go wrong with any menu items you choose here whether it's breakfast or lunch (which is probably why the chain has been so successful expanding across Toronto). Yum!

Website: http://www.aroma.ca/

Lindt Cafe @ The PATH

I finally had a chance to check out the new Lindt boutique location just in time for Christmas!

 
And I've got to say: one of the most exciting parts of this new (as of June 2013) boutique is the cafe where they prepare drinks:

 The barista was nice enough to give me some samples of the hot chocolate which was spectacular!

The dark chocolate was really rich in flavour and had the nice thick consistency of slowly melted chocolate. The milk chocolate was sweeter, but tasted a little blander after I was spoiled by the full-bodied dark chocolate. 

After much deliberation, I opted for the white chocolate mocha

I loved it! It wasn't too sweet which was a really nice change from my usual super sweet white chocolate mocha drink at Starbucks. Also, I found the espresso made it really aromatic and overall, it was just delicious. 

Overall: Heaven for Lindt Chocolate fans! I love all their drinks - you can't really go wrong with any of their options. The best part is that they're competitively priced with Starbucks (finally someone is giving the Starbucks white chocolate mochas a run for their money!).