this ain't a hood pt 1: Perfect Blend Bakery & Espresso Bar

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A customer walks in and is greeted by a nice barista who says, "Welcome to Perfect Blend, let me know when you're ready to order." The barista's wiping down the tables with no rush at all, while the owner's frantically pacing up and down looking all over the place. Apparently a dog shit in front of the little two table "patio" they have in front there, the owner didn't know what to clean it up with. The customer took her time. Clearly she didn't know what she wanted and could you blame her? The selection was out of this world. From coffee to tea to lattes and gelato. Of course there's all the amazing baked goods they have displayed ever so nicely there plus sandwiches and salads.

Perfect Blend is a gorgeous café that really reminded me of Twiggs in North Bay, but a little bit more modern looking. In front of the counter were different food items for sale such as fancy tomato sauces as well as different baskets of fresh bread based items such as rolls and bagels. I saw another customer go in just to buy bread from them which is pretty unique, I don't think I've seen cafés really do that (correct me if I'm wrong). Another thing I was surprised to see was no WiFi, now it's not advertised that they didn't have it,curious I turned on the WiFi on my phone and saw two locked connections that belonged elsewhere. This reminded me of something I overheard someone say at a different café, he said "If I were to open my own cafe I'd have no WiFi and put a sign that said 'No Wifi, talk to each other instead." Now I have no idea if that was the owner's mindset but it's a nice welcome to not see people just sitting there drinking coffee with their laptops. I barely touched my phone after I checked unless I wanted to take a picture of something.

Atmosphere and looks don't mean anything unless Perfect Blend has the food to match it right? I'm glad to tell you that it sure does.

Disclaimer - I went to Perfect Blend back to back - once on the Friday afternoon and the other on a Saturday morning.

Now that little blurb up there that you just read is the Saturday morning I went to P.B. What I ordered is the following,

• Small Coffee
• Chocolate Chunk Cookie
• "Monster" Cookie

Now I won't lie to you, I've only started drinking coffee for the past couple of months so my coffee judging skills are not up to par as others. Like most cafés the coffee comes black and you go to the counter in front of the cashier area to pour whatever you like into it. So I did it pouring what I hoped was my usual 2 cream 1 sugar mix. It wasn't. It was a lot more bitter than that but surprisingly I enjoyed it a lot. I didn't have to go back to re-pour sugar or cream. Personally I really liked the coffee. It only comes in one variety which is just the Perfect Blend coffee. Not dark, blonde or cruelty free or whatever other bullshit type of coffee there is. If there's any cons to the coffee I'd say that they fill it almost to the brim, which sounds like a first world problem only because if I poured too much cream it would of overflowed. Which it did. Opps.

The cookies however is something I could judge since they're my favourite baked anything ever. For lack of better words - these cookies are dope. When I bite into the Chocolate chunk cookie, the cookie is hella soft and the chocolate was nice and gooey. The one word that comes to me is FRESH. The cookie has such a nice cookie to chocolate ratio I wolf it down and drown it with coffee and the combo itself is just so delicious! The other cookie the "Monster" cookie reminds me of the Chips Ahoy Cookie with the rainbow chips in it. At first when I saw it I thought they were M&Ms but they weren't, the chips were actually bigger than M&Ms. When you bite down on them there's no crunchy shell at all. Same as the chocolate chunk it was soft and just bursting with chocolate which is  awesome.

The cookies and small coffee comes up to $3.50 exact. Not bad at all.

Coffee + Cookies = 8.5/10

cheap + effective = makes me want to go back to try other desserts/lattes.

Lets go back to the Friday now. Perfect Blend Café - Weston Road. Friday afternoon.

They were busy. People were talking to each other then there's the odd ball - me sitting alone taking pictures of what I ordered. So what did I order? Well for weeks now they've had a sign promoting what they call the "Bagel Buster"

The Bagel Buster comes in 3 different options: BLT, Egg & Cheese, and Ham, egg and cheese.

You choose the bagel you want from the baskets of bagels behind you,  like Tim's they have whole wheat (sold out), Pretzel (sold out), and others. When I went back on the Saturday morning they were all restocked so I'd go early for lunch if I were you.

I end up getting the Ham, Egg & cheese. the Bagel was buttered. I really wished they put some kind of sauce with a leaf of lettuce and tomato on it but even without it, it was pretty damn good. The ham stood out a lot because it wasn't like the thin Subway ham. It was more like the Christmas day ham grandma would cut and it wasn't cold cut ham it was warm! The bagel wasn't over buttered like KFC's bread but when you're comparing it to KFC I guess the bar isn't really set high. The egg was an egg. I mean it was good but still ham = king of this sandwich.

For $4.50, you really couldn't go wrong with this sandwich which they tout as "Breakfast or Lunch on the go." Makes sense.

8/10

So lets recap - a bagel buster, coffee and 2 cookies (mind you each cookie is $1, so substitute that with whatever dessert that fits the $1-$3 range), costs around $8-$9...

Broke & P1cky approved.

Thanks for reading

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Part 2 of the Weston Rd. "this ain't a hood" Specials coming soon.

"You live in the hood" - No.. I don't. - Weston Road feature.

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This is NOT a review. More like an introduction to a special or feature i'll be working on. Feel free to skip this if you were hoping to read a review.

I was walking home from Shoppers Drug Mart and I got to the corner of Lawrence West and Weston Road when a cop was just standing there.

"How are you today sir?" he asked me kindly in a non-carding sort of way.
"I'm great." I paused slightly. I was talking to an officer and the whole situation slightly confused me but I went on,
"What about you?"
"I'm great as well, thanks for asking." The crossing light turned on by this point and as I started to walk he joined me.

"So the reason I'm here is because we're just doing checks on the neighborhood." the friendly officer says as we get to the other side of the street.

He begins to tell me stories about how the area was.
1 cop got shot in the face just a little bit further past where my building is
2 guys died from getting shot from street dancing - at a bar near my place that's exactly what he said.

Old stories aside I felt odd because the next words that came out of my mouth were,

"I actually feel safe here."

I love Weston Road. It has its oddballs, and a weird mix of Somalians and Gypsys but at the end of the day Weston Road wasn't really like how it was back in the day. I'd argue now that every area whether it be Toronto, Brampton, Whitby, all the way to North Bay has it's set of weird but  somewhat lovable fucks. 

It's just a bunch of people who are just trying to survive the screwface city. I'll always believe that. It's the reason why i'll always have such a deep seeded respect for the Weston area.

Fun Fact: i've had friends who come over from Brampton, Vaughan and different parts of Toronto and tell me things like 

"This area is pretty underrated." 

to 

"It's areas like these that make me feel privileged that I live in my area." 

Right? but like I said I love Weston. 

There's a reason why I love it more than anything though... THE FOOD. 

COME ON this is a food blog of COURSE this was going to lead back to food in some sort of way. 

It just so happens Weston Road has fantastic places to go eat.

So over the next couple of days/weeks or so I'll be reviewing 3 different places..

All Weston. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to show you my "hood" 

IVS. 

KFC Fill ups - meh.

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So after reviewing nothing but dessert options it's finally time to get down to the meal reviews. Meals that we promised you to be under 10$ (15$ if necessary) Trust me somewhere out there, there are great meals under $10 where you actually either get a lot or a decent amount of food.

Now let's go to our meal of the day. KFC's $5 fill ups.

KFC is perhaps the most random fast food restaurant I may have ever come across. Think about it.. who else would be that crazy to deep fry two chicken filets then in the middle of the two insert bacon, cheese and what seems to be thousand island sauce and name it the Double Down. Another example is their mock of the Big Mac just replacing the beef with chicken. Oh let's not forget that epic Double Down hot dog. Jesus Christ.

Before I start this review I'm going to say it's been a while since I've been to KFC because ever since Popeyes came in my life my family converted to those Louisiana spices. Sorry Colonel.

Let's begin!

The 5$ fill up, 5.99$ in some places like Yorkdale or Eaton centre has different versions of it. The only difference between the 4 is the main portion of it. Options include: 1 pc Rib, 1 drumstick 1 thigh, popcorn chicken and the chicken bowl.

The rest of the fill ups remain the same:

• Fries or mash potatoes
• Buttery bread
• Chocolate chip cookie
• Medium Drink

For the sake of the review I ended up going with the popcorn chicken box.

Where do I even start? The meal comes in KFC's traditional box that ditches the old school red and white for a "fresh" design. Touting the fact that it's quality chicken, made with REAL ingredients. You notice that all these fast food places are now saying their food is made with real ingredients? Makes me wonder what the hell we were eating in the 90s.

The food itself if we're talking looks just looks absolutely lifeless.

It looked drained. Unappealing and just straight up boring.

I started off with the fries which in itself weren't that great. They weren't hot, more like lukewarm. Nothing about it screamed freshly made. Lacked salt (blessing in disguise maybe?). Through taste it was just telling me "bruh I was just chillin in the warmer."

Moving onto the actual popcorn chicken. I've already started to feel the first stages of regret. I had to keep reminding myself that "it was only $5.85" Cheap or not this was inexcusable, KFC is known for chicken however the chicken tasted like garbage. The popcorn was a little warmer than the fries. Nothing about it stood out at all. It basically tasted like something that came out the oven, cooled down and then proceeded to be microwaved again. Not even dunking the entire popcorn in the honey mustard sauce could saved it's dryness. Which makes me think this whole box might of actually been chilling in a warmer.

Now it's the bread's turn. The bread isn't toasted. It's soft. Marshmallow soft. Chewy. Again barely hot. Buttered on both sides so it wouldn't dry out I'm guessing. Speaking of butter, would you believe me if I said that that was the best part about this excuse for bread. Yup, the butter. Is that a reason to go eat the crappy bread just for the butter? No. If you want to do that just go to your local supermarket, go to the dairy section, pick up a tub of butter, go home, grab a spoon and enjoy.

Oh yeah, there's a cookie. That's another odd trend that's hit fast food places, McDonald's, Wendy's, KFC all started carrying cookies around the same time. McDonalds and Wendy's kinda make sense since they have coffee and they combo it with that but for KFC it makes no sense. They don't really carry coffee. Maybe it's a dessert option? I guess it's a prize for finishing that odd meal and making you feel better for wasting that $5. Genius marketing really.

Anyway the cookie was soft. However it wasn't really moist like the way soft cookies are meant to be. The chocolate chips looked lighter than usual, possibly from suffocating in that red package. My Publishing Books professor bakes better than this. (they are actually great cookies SUP ERIN!)

Overall

I'm baffled. If you were in dire emergency and only had $6 I guess go for it. Remember this is just the popcorn chicken review, there are other options and if you do want to try it I suggest going to the "upper scale" KFCS like the Yorkdale and Eaton centre which I'm guessing and slightly stereotyping that it will be better.

In my honest option though I would rather this than going for a Tuesday Special. You actually get more bang for your buck.

Again that's if you ever need to go to KFC. Otherwise go elsewhere for your chicken needs.

5.5/10

Are you a KFC fanatic who thinks I'm wrong?

Got meal or dessert ideas for the next blog?

Want to wish me an early happy birthday?

Or general feedback?

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IVS

DQ Jurassic Smash Review

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I've been missing lately and for that I apologize.

But I AM BACK with another..ice cream review... yeah..

Earlier it was the 20th anniversary of the McFlurry and apparently DQ is having a Blizzard anniversary where they're deeming it the "Best Blizzard Menu EVER" It's only out of fairness ( and slight laziness) on my part that I go try some of these flavours.

Before I started this blog I actually tried one of the "Fanniversary" flavours Brownie Chunk Cookie Dough and I wasn't too fond of it. I didn't think they mashed well together as a blizzard soft serve as they do as a hard scoop ice cream flavour (see Ben & Jerry's and Nestle Toll House for fantastic collaborations between brownie and cookie dough). There are other flavours depending on whatever DQ you go to like for example: Oreo Birthday Cake, Salted Caramel Truffle (which was sold out at the location I went to) and also Brownie Batter.

Lets move on to the actual Jurassic Smash

Now I don't know what about the upcoming Jurassic Park Movie says Peanut Butter Cookies but that is the most compelling part of this whole experience.

 So first of all the cashier didn't even flip it upside down, what was up with that? I checked the door and they didn't have the "upside down or free" signs.

It's whatever though. Here it is in all it's glory. The Jurassic Smash consists of:

• Peanut Butter Cookie Dough pieces
• Chocolate chip cookie dough pieces
• Peanut butter
• Chocolate chunks

All in all it's pretty much a cookie ice cream version of Reese's. Kidding

Unlike McDonalds' ice cream when you can actually tell what's inside of it. The blizzard remains that classic ice cream truck twist when it melts colour that's universal when it's mixed with anything chocolate or caramel related. To be real I don't ever think I've had a pure white blizzard with coloured chunks and that's completely fine.

Now when you bite into it the actual peanut butter cookie pieces, they are unbelievable! They were so f-n good, I actually slowed my chewing down to savour every last piece of it. I'm surprised they haven't done this before, maybe this brings the possibility of other cookie flavours? Chocolate chip seems a bit overdone, and that's exactly how I felt when my delicious peanut butter cookie was substituted with a chocolate chip cookie dough piece. To me, at least, the flavour felt boring and a let down especially after tasting those awesome peanut butter pieces. If they were just to have a peanut butter cookie dough blizzard, I would of just gotten that. However it would not of been a Jurassic Smash without the chocolate chip / chocolate pieces.

For the actual Blizzard/DQ soft serve ice cream, I tasted a hint of peanut butter however it mostly tasted how it looked like melted twist ice cream where you couldn't tell if it were vanilla one bite in or chocolate the next. Not really a terrible ice cream but it serves the purpose right? It just melts way too fast too. I really don't enjoy that.

Overall

This is an interesting blizzard that I hope they bring back without the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. Whenever I do get a blizzard 75% of the time I get the Reese's one but if they were to have a just Peanut Butter Cookie Dough blizzard that would be my main flavour. The cookie dough itself was super soft, easy to chew and had a smooth taste that clashed pretty badly with chocolate chip cookie dough.

Pushing aside my recently discovered bias against chocolate chip cookie dough(no idea where that came from), I must say that this is a pretty creative blizzard and a lot of people are going to enjoy this one. This is a must have for peanut butter lovers who love ice cream, and want something different than the typical Reese's and Peanut Parfait.

8/10


If you enjoyed this or hated it
OR if you just want to talk DQ or other ice cream flavours I should try
OR any awesome meals (which i should be really reviewing instead of desert)
OR my over use of brackets

Let me know! Thanks for reading.

- IVS