By The Way Café (400 Bloor St. W & Brunswick)

By The Way Café’s whimsically muralled-walls, dark oak tables and Middle-Eastern inspired menu have become a landmark for weekend brunching in Toronto’s Annex. From 10:30 am onward the place is packed, and the background chatter of happy brunchers is a surprisingly-fine substitute for music in this music-free environment (at least the morning we brunched). Brunchtime seating can be “intimate”, but the café has done a great job maximizing seating indoors when it is too cold to sit on the glorious patio (heated with gas heaters from early spring onward). The café is a fantastic locale for people-watching as its floor-to-ceiling windows, and patio, hang over one of the Annex’s most trafficked corners, Bloor and Brunswick.

As far as the food was concerned, this was the first time that we have been divided.

Karina ordered the Shakshuka ($9.00), described on the menu as “two poached eggs in a rich and spicy tomato broth” with pita. Nothing in this dish wowed Karina. While the dish was flavourful, had the right amount of spice, and was most certainly unique on the brunch scene, the yoke in the poached eggs was not runny, and Karina was just not overwhelmed.

Rachelle ordered the goat cheese and sun-dried tomato omelette with zatar ($9.00). The dish came with hashbrowns, what the menu called a “Montreal bagel”, and sliced fruit. The omelette was delicious. Where else can you get zatar in an omelette? The zatar complemented the goat cheese and highlighted its sour undertones, but to our dismay, the bagel was not a Montreal bagel! To add insult to injury, it was not well-toasted as she had requested. This was disappointing to Rachelle, our well-toasted-Montreal-Bagel-lover.

Leora and Mark both ordered the Eggs Benny ($9.00). The classic order also came with hashbrowns and sliced fruit. If you like dill, this is the Eggs Benny for you. This dill hollandaise sauce made the dish. While we were a bit thrown off by the substitution of sliced-ham in the place of pea meal bacon, the dill hollandaise was so good that it almost did not matter. There’s no doubt that a Benny should be made with pea meal, but Leora would go back just for the dill.

Deconstructing the rest of the meal, the hashbrowns were delicious. They were fried with onion, well-seasoned, and were really soft – to the point that part of the portion begins to resemble mashed potatoes after a while.

In terms of coffee, the drip was really good. They make a mild, but flavourful cup: not watery, but not too intense.

We also disagreed on the staff. Leora liked the service and Karina found it curt.

Price-wise, their prices were a little lower than your average hip brunch place where Eggs Benny run around $11-$12.

RATING: All-in-all it’s a good, solid, satisfying brunch. Based on our rating system (see below) Leora would have given the brunch a 3.7, Karina would have given it a 2.8. We’ve compromised on 3.25/5.

Many factors go into a truly sublime brunch experience….

Rating Scale

	1	2	3	4	5
Innovation of menu	BORING!				Wow! Did Susur Lee create this?
Would you go out of your way to go back?	Out of my way? You couldn’t drag me…				Yes…I’d even walk it if I had to.
Service	Rude and slow				Did I just have sex?
Atmosphere	Uncomfortable/ tacky/ugly/dirty/Too loud/too quiet/				Perfection balance
Taste	Bland, under/overcooked …bad.				Manna from heaven

B Restaurant (2210 Dundas Street West & Roncesvalles)

There was pretty much nothing that we didn't like at B Restaurant. This sunny, friendly, casual joint serves some really great food. The restaurant hangs over the intersection of Dundas West and Roncesvalles, with bar seats lining the westward-facing windows. Light walls, cacti on all the tables, open-kitchen concept, Feist and the Postal Service, chalkboard menus, thermos refills, communal seating and tables upholstered in comic strips, scones in a pyramid-formation on the counter, happy brunchers and friendly service, the vibe at B was both hip and relaxed.

The food was truly fantastic. B takes classic, and not-so-classic brunch favourites, and gives them creative and sophisticated twists. Karina ordered the Eggs Benny ($12.00). This brunch classic came on a peppery scone, and was layered with fried tomato, grilled corn, cilantro, and jalapenos. The accompanying hashbrowns were crisp, seasoned, fried potatoes, and the green salad was fresh and garnished with a "B" made out of radish. Delicious flavours and great attention to detail.

Leora ordered the Cornbeef Hash ($11.00). The hash involved two poached eggs topped with melted chili-brick cheese, corn beef, sauteed onions, peppers, zucchini, sourkrout and another radish-B. Again - truly delicious. Simple ingredients daringly matched.

Such interesting and complex dishes were almost unexpected at a place where the bill arrived in a tomato-paste can.

The service was super friendly, the vibe was great, and the food was so interesting it left us wanting to return - especially since neither of us tried the omelette with duck, apple sausage and brie. Based on innovation, service, taste, atmosphere, and our desire to go out of our way to return, we gave B Restaurant a 4/5.

Note to brunchers: this place is a cash & debit only.

Aroma Espresso Bar (500 Bloor Street West & Albany)

Aroma Espresso Bar is the new-ish coffee bar that opened on the corner of Bloor and Albany in Toronto's Annex neighbourhood (old JJ Mugs location). While the cafe's art-deco decor borders on tacky, and while the constant images of CNN newscasts (on the mounted flat-screen television) may seem unorthodox, these stylistic blemishes are easy to overlook in light of the buzz, vibe, constant traffic, and great quality food that accompanies the "Aroma experience".

Aroma is almost undefinable: it confuses the boundary between restaurant and coffee-house. Like a good quality restaurant, fresh bread is baked daily and all sandwiches and salads are made to order. Yet, like a coffee shop, there is no table-service. Instead, you place your order at the cash, and when your order is up, the kitchen calls your name on an intercom system. You then take your tray/drink to a table/bar stool and do your thing.

While Aroma primarily serves drinks, sandwich, salads and pastries, it also serves the "all-day power breakfast". For the traditional brunch-goer, the pickings are slim on the Aroma menu. Other than the all-day power breakfast, the only brunch-like menu items are the fruit, yogurt and granola cup ($4.90) and an assortment of muffins and danishes (prices varying).

The food:

Both of us ordered the all-day power breakfast for $8.90. For an extra $1.50 (a discounted price), one can have any of Aroma's hot or cold beverages added to the meal. Leora added a latte. The power breakfast came with eggs (choice of hard-boiled, sunny-side up, over-easy, scrambled or omelette), a heap of salad (mixed greens, diced cucumber and tomato), large black olives, a pile of shredded feta cheese (cheese may vary depending on the day - it has been halumi, a middle-eastern cheese, in the past), and a mound of a moist, super smooth and creamy soft cheese. The breakfast also comes with four pieces of thickly-sliced artisenal bread (choice of whole wheat, rye blend, and a couple of others) and two salad dressings/dipping sauces (balsamic and thousand-islands).

The food was very good and very fresh. Simple but high quality ingredients were combined in this refreshing and light brunch. The portions were enormous. The attention to detail was also great. All drinks were served on a doily and came with a small milk chocolate square. The latte even had a heart swirled into its foam.

Great quality, great value and friendly service. If you don't mind the possibility of eating brunch on a bar stool, and you're in the mood for a light brunch that won't necessarily keep you "powered" throughout the day, give this a shot. A brunch at Aroma might even wind up being a bit cheaper than other trendy Toronto brunches: since there is no table-service, tipping is up to discretion.

RATING: There is no doubt that one could compile certain elements of the power breakfast at home, yet in this case simplicity indicates creativity; the combination of the fresh-baked bread, the huge portions, the fresh ingredients, and the attention to detail make the power-breakfast anything but ordinary. While there is only one brunch item on the menu, it is a good one. Yet we have to concede, despite its grandeur, it is not the most filling of meals, and given the bustling nature of the joint, it is not a dining experience. The decor is also far from hip, but the crowds and the buzz prove the contrary. While the breakfast was high quality and delicious going down, for these reason we give Aroma Espresso Bar's "all-day power breakfast" a 3.5 out of 5.