In honour of the ridiculously early morning outing I had yesterday, here’s some breakfast for anyone and everyone who needs a delicious energy boost! Yesterday morning reminded me just how much I adore breakfast and breakfast foods (especially in a state of ravenous hunger), and also how much I’ve missed being in the water. I used to be a hardcore swimmer when I was little, taking my fins all the way to Whalers life-saving class (Level 8 in my swim program and the first of three life-saving levels) when I was 11 years old. I stopped swimming on a regular basis shortly after and only took it up again, briefly, when I started high school. It’s been nearly 10 years since I last went swimming and I went to the pool with my dad yesterday morning at the crack of dawn for the first time since I was 15. Needless to say, I had one hell of a workout! It’s going to take some time for me to get my groove back (most of the time I was just flutter kicking, doggy paddling, and treading water), but it felt so good to swim again and I’m really glad I stuck it out and ran out of the house in a sleepy stumble at 6:15am! 😀
That morning swim worked up quite the appetite, so to celebrate all yummy breakfast things, I have fresh and fruity strawberry crepes from Futures Bakery for you! Futures Bakery has a mouth-watering breakfast menu (along with a hunger-inducing lunch and dinner menu), that boasts thick slabs of French toast and several different kinds of eggs benedict, omelettes, breakfast sandwiches, pancakes, and of course, crepes! Their spinach and feta omelette was the first breakfast dish I blogged about and I absolutely raved about their portions, their home fries, and everything in between. I made a solemn foodie promise to myself that I would eat my way through their menu, so this is my second breakfast post with much more to come in the future (no pun intended).
Futures serves 3 different kinds of crepes on their all-day breakfast menu ($6.95): strawberry, blueberry, and maple. And if you can believe, between myself, my mum, and my brother, we’ve eaten through all 3 kinds! And we love all of them. I love crepes, but I’m always a little wary about them. And what I mean by that is their potential to fill you and satisfy you as a full-fledged meal, without falling into the dessert category. I’ve had non-dessert crepes that tasted good, but that have sadly left me hungry and a little empty in the end. Off the top of my head, I know Demetres has GIANT dessert crepes (which prompted an old friend of mine to look at our non-crepe dessert plates and say, “why does mine look the most gluttonous?!”), and there are plenty of other places in the city I would love to go to that specialize in crepes, both savoury and sweet. I am to say though that Futures breakfast crepes are AH-MAZING.
It was the combination of crepe and filling that makes the dish so good to eat. One doesn’t trump the other because both are equally as delicious and of stellar quality. The filling is so fruity and sweet and fresh. You are not eating some lame filling that resembles jam out of a jar. You’re literally cutting into a thick, yummy crepe and watching the juicy strawberry puree ooze out and let me tell you, there’s a lot of it.
As well, they’re not the paper thin kind that we’re accustomed to seeing. They’re thicker, like a pancake, but chewy instead of cakey. If I could make an accurate comparison of their appearance and texture to any other kind of food, I would say that they resemble blintzes. I say this time and time again, but Futures does not skimp and it’s great quality food at bang-for-your-buck prices and portions. The crepes are plump, wonderfully crispy on the edges, golden in colour, and folded into cute little “envelopes” of strawberry fruit filling. This meal reminds me so much of summer mornings with baskets of fresh fruit, and why breakfast is so much fun to eat.
*****
Futures Bakery and Cafe is located at 483 Bloor St. West, in between the main intersections and subway stations of Spadina Ave. and Bathurst St. It sits right at the corner of Bloor St. and Brunswick Ave. on the south side of Bloor. They are open from 7:30am to 2am 7 days a week.
Ate by Ate 