Brunch @ Lola's Commissary

I've been dying to pay Lola's Commissary a visit to try their famous Cheesecake stuffed French Toast for a long, long time. Finally, I was able to make brunch plans here with two of my girl friends before a day of shopping downtown. Housed inside a Victorian, the space is very cute with a quirky, welcoming charm. It had that kind of eclectic, artistic décor that I would want in my dream house in the future.

My friend opted for a pulled chicken wrap with Ancho chilli spiced chicken, fresh guacamole, tomato corn salsa and greens, paired with Lola's potatoes. She commented that her wrap was pretty good, although I didn't try any myself. On a side note, Lola's potatoes used to be called sexy potatoes, and I thought that name was a lot more quirky and appealing.

Between my other friend and myself, we shared two items, the first being a stuffed grilled cheese, featuring chorizo sausage, caramelized onions, sun-dried tomato pesto, spinach and Lola's cheese blend on multigrain bread with homemade ketchup. I always had a deep love for the humble grilled cheese, and a stuffed one was even more appealing! You would think that a stuffed grilled cheese would be infinitely more decadent than a normal one. Surprisingly, the result was not as greasy and buttery as I'd imagined it to be. In fact, I'd say that the cheese was not the star of the sandwich, but only a complementary element. In contrast, the greens definitely stood out, giving the sandwich a refreshing crunch. It definitely felt much healthier and wholesome than the typical diner-style grilled cheese. Nevertheless, the flavours of the stuffing worked well together and I still enjoyed the sandwich, despite it not being a greasy, buttery grilled cheese. We also opted for a side of Lola's potatoes, which was a mix of diced regular potatoes and sweet potatoes. I thought that the spice mix was quite tasty and went well particularly with the sweet potatoes.

Of course, the other item that we shared was Lola's stuffed French toast: challah French toast stuffed with homemade vanilla cheesecake topped with wild blueberry compote. It was a decadent marriage of French toast, which I love, with my ultimate guilty obsession- cheesecake. I would eat cheesecake everyday if it didn't kill me. So I was genuinely excited when this much-anticipated concoction arrived at the table.

Sandwiched between the two pieces of challah toast was a thin slice of cheesecake. It was good, don't get me wrong, but it was definitely not the extraordinarily decadent monster that I had expected. I wished that Lola could have pushed the boundaries further, be more generous with the cheesecake stuffing and really go all the way. I also wasn't entirely fond of the prominent citrus taste in the cheesecake itself, because the natural, cheesy flavour was lost in that. In the end, I wanted something that would really blow my mind off and put me into a food coma, and this didn't do so. But at least after a rich meal of stuffed grilled cheese and French toast, I didn't feel my lifespan shortening and still had energy to shop for a whole day.