Patisserie la Cigogne

Nov 5, 2020

Croissant $2.65

This was half the price of the pistachio croissant nearby at Bomou, and I really liked this one since it was super soft, fluffy and a little flaky with a delicious buttery taste! Also would come back for this croissant - Yum!

Bacarra Cake - Pistachio cake and hazelnut mousse $7.50

The overall impression of the cake when I was eating it was that it was sticky. There was a lot of glaze and the mousse inside was on the harder side and the thin layer of apricot jam in the middle was sticky too - I wonder if it's because it's been sitting out all day (or for longer) and everything just hardened. 

Nov 23, 2018

Bacarra cake

Somehow this just didn't have the same impact it had before. The cake was a little dry and stale and the chocolate layers were kind of sticky. The apricot layer was also strange. It seemed like there was more hazelnut cream than any pistachio flavour, I don't think it's the same anymore.

November 2, 2014

I can't help it - I had to go back for the Bacarra

Bacarra, Pear Sabayon Tart and Tiramisu

The Bacarra was just as delicious and heavenly as I remember it. YUMMY!

The pear tart and tiramisu were really good too...but the highlight of the day was the Bacarra for sure. 

October 31, 2014

Wow, I can't believe it's been two years since I've last had one of Patisserie la Cigogne's cakes (I guess this is one of the reasons why I still keep blogging haha). 

It's so weird because every time someone asks me for a cake recommendation - the first place that comes to mind is "Patisserie la Cigogne - it's a little far from the downtown core, but it's worth the trip!". It also helps that there's the Danforth location now - which is where I sent my friend recently for their amazing pistachio cakes. 

Croq-Pistache (x2), Opera, Mikado, Prince Noir and Symphony

The Croq-Pistache was just as good as I remembered it with the crunchy & crispy layers in the cake. However, I was a little sad I couldn't get the Bacarra (which is my new favourite cake). Instead, we got these other cakes to make up for it. 

Opera was a mocha butter cream and chocolate cream layered with Joconde biscuit with a chocolate glaze. I liked the mocha and chocolate cream with the crispy biscuit, but after all the pistachio desserts - this seemed a little too simple for me. It's classic and delicious - but I appreciate innovative desserts and cakes more. 

Mikado was another choice made with lemon madeleine sponge and lemon mousse with strawberry filling. The tart lemon made the white chocolate stand out more and made the cake overwhelmingly sweet. I would have liked if they used something else to balance the sweetness like a dark chocolate instead of white chocolate.

Next, the Prince Noir (I think?) with crispy praline crust, roasted hazelnut coffee butter creme and chocolate mousse finished with a dark glaze. The hazelnut mousse really stood out to me - it was so rich in nutty flavour and the cake had all these great textures. I would definitely order this again.

Last, the Symphony with a combination of dark, white and milk chocolate mousse filled with fresh raspberries with a pink sparkly glaze on top. The flavours seemed like it would work, but I feel like la Cigogne is known for their rich vibrant flavours that stand out (at least that's the case with bacarra and Prince Noir) and I felt the raspberry and chocolate flavours were a little lost in this cake since there was too much going on with all three chocolates.

Up close and personal pictures...

Working those camera shots and angles (LOL)

September 9, 2012

Tarte Flambée $11.49

Alsatian style thin crust pie with bacon, chopped onion and cream cheese baked in stone oven. 

The tarte flambée is also named flammekueche  in the Alsace region of France (Flammekuchen in German). 

Delicious! It was like a thin-crust creamy alternative to pizza. The cheese, chopped onion and bacon combination on the thin bread was scrumptious! Patisserie la Cigogne only serves tarte flambées on Saturdays and Sundays from 11am to 3pm and it's definitely worth the trip!

And then there are the cakes:

From top (clockwise): Ba-Ba au Rhum Cake, Bacarra, Apricot Almond Pie, Pinacolada, Croq Pistache and Raspberry Cheesecake in the middle.

My top 3 cakes are: Bacarra, the Apricot Almond Tart and the Croq Pistache. (I may be biased towards pistachio cakes)

Apricot almond pie: sweet crust filled with almond cream topped with sliced apricots and finished with apricot glaze and it was absolutely heavenly! This tart could totally give Clafouti tarts a run for their money. I also really liked that they added fresh raspberries to the tart to give it a tangy taste.

Pinacolada: coconut mousse & light pineapple mousse with dark chocolate cake soaked in rum. It was really different and the pastry chef stayed true to the pinacolada taste. Light, tasty and summery. 

Ba-Ba au Rhum Cake - It looked very pretty and light, but it had a heavy rum flavour and it was a little overwhelming.

Raspberry Cheesecake: sweet crust filled with white chocolate, cream cheese and fresh raspberries

Despite being a cheesecake, I found it rather fluffy and light. It was a simple and nice cheesecake, the downside was that the cookie didn't hold up too well.

Croq-Pistache: sweet crust filled with almond cream and crunchy hazelnut, finished with pistachio mousse

Wow - what a combination of flavours and textures with the crunchy hazelnut filling, soft airy pistachio mousse and the slightly chunkier almond cream filling. The flavours of the hazelnut and almond stood out more than the pistachio. It was a really unique cake.

Bacarra: crunchy pistachio, dark chocolate ganache and light caramel cream filled with peaches

This is my favourite dessert here! It just works wonderfully together with the pistachio, dark chocolate, peaches and dried apricot on top. Before this, I had no idea that these ingredients would even work together - but the chef has made a masterpiece with pistachio. Every bite is a delight!

Overall: One of my favourite cake places in Toronto! The service might be a little slow sometimes, but they consistently put out great desserts (especially pistachio ones) and food. On a weekend, the tables fill up with customers enjoying their coffee and patisseries similar to a cafe in France.

October 12, 2011

 For my brother's birthday, instead of buying one cake - we bought a selection of cakes (well it was also because our favourite cake at Patisserie la Cigogne [the Croq Pistache] wasn't available and the selection that night that was available wasn't super appealing to us). So instead, we grabbed the Bacarra, Exotic Flower, the Harmony, St. Eve, Louis XIV and Treasure Island (clockwise from the triangle at the top). We've had the Bacarra before and loved it - the patisserie chef at Patisserie de la Cigogne is amazing with pistachio desserts! We've had the best pistachio desserts here. The rest were really interesting, the Exotic flower was good and we thought the St. Eve was very nutty at first, but it grew on us and we thoroughly enjoyed it. The rest of the desserts were good - but I think once was good enough for us.

Since I love macarons, we also decided to pick up a box. The pink ones were rosewater (which is not a favourite flavour of mine), but we really enjoyed the yellow and orange ones. The brown and green ones weren't as good. It's quite hard finding really good macarons in Toronto. So alas, the search continues...

Website: http://patisserielacigogne.com/

Bomou Artisanal Bakery

Nov 5, 2020

Pistachio Croissant $4.50

The pistachio almond paste in the croissant was REALLY good and it wasn't super sweet

The croissant was a little harder and crunchier outside and not as flaky and soft as I would have liked my croissant, but the pistachio paste totally made up for it! I would definitely get this again!

June 10, 2020

Bomou Artisanal Bakery opened sometime in the last few months and I noticed it on one of my trips to Rahier and on Ubereats. They had a lot of selection of desserts, pastries and chocolates available for sale which was great! 

Pear Tart $3.25

The tart was really cute and it looked really nice with the pears cut into small cubes and baked into an almond filling. The almond part was quite nice, but the pears were a little strange since they weren't quite poached or fully cooked and somehow maintained a firm and slightly crunchy state (which wasn't what I expected). 

 

Shahzedeh $8.50

Pistachio mousse cake with rosewater gelee in the middle. It was a nice light pistachio mousse and looked really pretty cake. 

Butter Chicken Roti

Butter Chicken Roti is running a BOGO (buy one get one free) promotion on Ubereats

 

$15.95 Signature Butter Chicken Roti (and it can be picked up)

We got mild butter chicken with rice and one with roti to try them both out. 

The butter chicken sauce was creamy and sweet with some spices and lots of white meat chunks of chicken. I think I'll try it with a little more heat next time since the mild was mostly sweet. 

The portions were huge! The containers didn't look that big, but the roti was the size of the container inside (HUGE) and the butter chicken with rice came with a lot of rice and tons of sauce. 

Great deal! 

Website: https://www.butterchickenroti.com/menus

Cheese Garden

Nov 3, 2020

We got to use our $10 coupons on our next order, so we got two of the matcha tiramisu (since they were so good last time) and tried a new yaki pudding.

$11.95 Matcha Tiramisu 

Super yummy!

Chocolate yaki pudding $5.95

Turns out this is super tiny for $6 - it was basically the size of a salad dressing container. 

The chocolate pudding cheesecake had a fluffy cheesecake top that was pretty tasty, not too cheesy or too chocolate-y. There was pudding on the bottom which was also pretty good and it was fun that they combined two interesting textures and desserts together in one item. I did find it rather expensive for what it was and considering the size, but it was pretty good overall. 

Oct 23, 2020

We came back to try some of their other menu items with the 50% off. 

Uji Matcha Tiramisu (reg price $11.95)

The tiramisu had good matcha flavour and the cream cheese flavour was a lot more subtle (although it was still there - the matcha did a good job being the stronger more dominant flavour). The sweet mascarpone cheese on top was also really good even though it was on the runnier side. This was really yummy especially since the matcha was not too overwhelming and it tasted more like a matcha cake than a tiramisu (no chocolate or liqueur). It was obvious when you hit a cake layer in the tiramisu since it was a little harder, but overall it worked really well with the cheese and matcha cream. 

 

Matcha Double Fromage cheesecake (reg price $19.95)

Great matcha flavour and you could really taste the cheese in the cake (heavier cream cheese flavour). The cake wsn't too firm, instead it was a bit oozy after being left out for 25 minutes at room temperature. I liked the cake better after it was chilled/frozen in the fridge since it was more solid and kept its shape better, but the heavy cheesy flavour was still there and it didn't have as much matcha flavour to offset it as the tiramisu. 

October 19, 2020 

Cheese Garden is celebrating their anniversary and doing a promotion for 50% off 1 item and $10 voucher until October 24, 2020. I've never had their cheesecakes or tarts before, but I heard good things (even though I'm not a fan of Pablo or Uncle Tetsu, I figured for 50% off, it'd be time to try it out - maybe I'll find a Japanese cheese dessert I'll like?). Turns out there was quite a lineup at the Midland location - but luckily most people were socially distanced by at least 5 steps away. 

Cheese Tart $8.85 (with discount)

We got one of the last few cheese tarts after everything else sold out around 2:30pm. The cheese tart was really oozy with the cheese and I made the mistake of not reading instructions and instead of cutting the tart, tearing a piece of the tart shell and dipping into filling or serving with a spoon- I just cut it and tried to eat it which was a messy disaster. The pie crust was really hard to cut and I eventually just had to use my hands to rip it and eat it the directed way. It was super cheesy and the strongest flavour was definitely the cream cheese (which is NOT a flavour I like). The cheese was also sweet and sour and super liquid-like. I found the cheese tart got better later when it wasn't as oozy, but I still didn't really like it. 

Website: https://www.cheesegarden.ca/

Jerkup Central

 When we were driving along Brimley, I saw a sign about lunch specials. So when I got home, I did a little research and found out that Jerkup Central has a daily jerk chicken lunch special with vegetables and a drink for $6.99

$6.99 Lunch Special with Jerk Chicken leg, rice & peas and vegetables

It looked pretty good and the sodas were pretty interesting too!

The vegetable mix was different with like cut up choy sum and peppers rather than the usual coleslaw. Unfortunately, they didn't help with the spicy jerk chicken sauce. The jerk chicken leg was good since it was nice and juicy, but flavourwise and overall I still found I liked Ritz's better. 

It was a decent cheap lunch deal for $6.99

Website: http://www.jerkupcentral.com/

Snow Tea

 There are so many bubble tea options in Skycity Shopping Centre and quite a few of them have dessert options. I saw that Snow Tea had crepe cake online, so I picked one up to try.

Purple Taro Crepe Cake $7.99

The crepe cake had pretty good layers of crepe with a cake layer at the bottom and throughout the cake there were pieces of taro and taro paste between some layers of the crepe cake, but mostly cream. I would have liked it more if it had a stronger and sweeter taro taste, but it was okay overall.