Baddies Cafe
Anju Road Rating: ★★★
This popular Australian brunch spot proves that looks are more important than taste.
I had heard nothing but good things about Baddies since I moved to Toronto. Safe to say I was very excited to be able to try it out.
I finally took a morning to make my way north to this small chic eatery.
Vibe
The first thing you notice about baddies is the vibe. Surf's Up would be an apt description. The small space is lined street-side with nearly floor to ceiling windows letting in lots of natural light. The white walls and plants strewn about make for quite the homey feel.
Even though this place has to be less than 500sqft, they still manage to pack in multiple Instagram shot spots.
Coffee
The Ethiopian long black had wonderful aroma until the acidic citrus took over. I was excited to finally have an Ethiopian bean served as an espresso not be terrible, but I wasn't ultimately impressed.
As espresso does, it dies very quickly, so make sure to drink it in under 2 minutes and you'll be fine.
Food
Alright, now let's get to why we're all here. The food.
Coming right out of the gate, I was quite disappointed in the food at Baddies. Let me describe what my fiancee and I ordered and why we were upset.
The Spiced Sausage Sammy
My original post on Instagram said something along the lines of:
The texture of the Sammy felt like it was just avocado and bread, the flavour only came through once we got to the hot peppers in the middle.
After reading the menu description, I was sold. I ordered it and I really wanted to like this gorgeous dish that was presented in front of me.
I took a huge bite... and got bread and maybe a bit of egg. So I took another bite, and got some more bread, with some more egg, and maybe a bit of avocado? I kept biting into this sandwich expecting a sausage and egg texture, but I got mush. Not only was my sausage patty about 1/2 the size of the actual bun, it was also soft! When biting into a somewhat soggy-feeling sandwich, you begin to not love the feel in your mouth.
It was only until I got to the halfway point and I began biting into some of the hot peppers that the flavour of the sausage began to present itself. I am not sure if we just got a less seasoned piece of sausage, but overall I was quite unimpressed with this sandwich. For something that looked so good, the texture and blandness didn't quite do it for me.
The Frenchie
Now this was a beautiful work of art dropped in front of us. But once again we were deceived by the plating looking better than the taste of the food. My original post slammed it, maybe too hard:
The pride of the Frenchie lies in it's bread, which disappoints the French so quickly in one cakey disaster. Points redeemed for the use of real ricotta cheese and the in-house brittle.
Once again, we were very excited by what was presented to us only to be saddened by the floppy and squishy texture of the bread. A quick egg wash and a flip or two on the pan left the inside of this bread completely soft. Not in a way that was pleasant and fluffy, but more of not having time to cook it properly, so this should be enough.
With the splatter of ingredients and lathering of whipped cream, this one gets a solid pass on the dish recommendation.
Final Thoughts
As you can clearly tell, I was very excited and very let down when Baddies didn't live up to our hype and expectations. Maybe we sat down on a bad day or maybe there was a new chef. But the fact of the matter remains; our food looked amazing, and their Instagram food looks identical, so I don't think this is an issue of a single day mishap. This is a situation where the food simply looks better than it tastes.
Baddies
679 Lansdowne Ave, Toronto, ON M6H 3Y9
@baddies.caf
Total Visits: 1
Anju Road Rating: ★★★