Mini-Donuts @Little Nicky's Coffee (Toronto,ON)

375 Queen Street West
Toronto, Ontario
416.260.0500

After brunch at Drake Hotel, we shopped our legs out at the Eaton Centre and on Queen Street West. The plan is that when we'd start to feel peckish, we would go have fresh donuts! After dealing with the crowds at The Gap, we turned down the street off Queen and headed to Little Nicky's.



Little Nicky's is a small coffee shop with a handful of tables and stools at the counter. It has a French bistro like vibe and offers good quality coffee. My sister splurged and ordered the Nutella hot chocolate! My brother-in-law and I each ordered an Americano, which was freshly made by the barista who asked how much hot water to add to the 1 or 2 shot of coffee. I liked that they offered spoons instead of stir sticks; I always admire efforts to minimize waste!



I was beyond excited to order a dozen of mini-donuts ($4) that were made to order. There's a small little machine where the mini-donuts are deep fried and come off of a mini-conveyor. The donuts are then tossed in powdered sugar and cinnamon.



Preparing mini-donuts.

We were excited to dig into the paper bag of hot donuts. They were soft on the inside, crispy on the outside, with a satisfying coating of sugar and cinnamon. There are really no sufficient adjectives to describe this, are there?



For $4, you really can't beat freshly fried mini-donuts! It makes me never want to have a donut at Tim Horton's ever again! Fresh donuts should be easily available everywhere!

Brunch at Drake Hotel (Toronto,ON)

1150 Queen St West
Toronto, Ontario
416.531.5042
website

My sister and brother-in-law came for a quick visit. We spent the day in Toronto and started it off by having brunch at Drake Hotel. Drake Hotel seems to be the ultimate hipster spot for brunch (I don't really use the term hipster often, but it really seemed befitting in this case - although really, what do I know about being hip?!).



We had brunch on the café side, where we sat under a colourful bicycle frame lighting structure. We were very impressed!



My brother-in-law D started out with a pretty cappucino.



We decided to share the warm scone share plate ($8) deemed Toronto's best blueberry scones by The Toronto Star. We wholeheartedly agreed and enjoyed each bite of our buttery scones, served with a choice of clotted cream dotted with vanilla specks, whipped butter and jam. Very worthwhile ordering!


Blueberry Scones.

My sister ordered the Eggs Benedict ($13), which consisted of 2 poached eggs, smoked pork loin on toasted English muffin with hollandaise, and replaced the hand cut fries with home fries. The home fries were nicely crisp with slices of sweet onion. She really enjoyed the thick cut smoked pork loin and hollandaise sauce (on the side).


Eggs Benedict.

My brother-in-law and I decided to share the Southern fried chicken + waffles ($14.75), which seemed like a novel menu item. It was made up of a large herb waffle, fried chicken, maple syrup, crème fraîche and Niagara cherry jam. I loved the savoury fried chicken and herb waffle combined with sweet syrup and cherry jam. The fried chicken was well-seasoned with a bit of a kick from cumin (?). I really liked the big pieces of cherries; my sister scooped the leftover ones over her scone. My only issue is that I don't like things overly sweet and thought there was too much syrup. Were I to order this again, I would definitely ask for the syrup on the side.


Southern Fried Chicken + Waffles.

We really enjoyed our brunch and even came back later in the evening for drinks. It's a great spot to hit in Toronto for a meal or drinks, if you're not staying at the boutique hotel. We also checked out a combination of cool and vintage items at the General Store next door.