Cafe Belong located at 550 Bayview Ave in Toronto
After a nice hike in the paths at the Evergreen Brick Works on a hot and humid day, the three of us went for lunch at Cafe Belong! Cafe Belong is the only restaurant on site at the Evergreen Brick Works and I was so excited to try it out with Cyn.
The environment and design of Cafe Belong weregorgeous! There were large glass panes in the interior dining space and a large patio weather weather permitting. On this summer day, we definitely selected to dine outside on the patio (besides, it didn’t seem that there was air conditioning indoor anyways and thus it would have been stuffy to sit inside).
I liked this little shopping cart that held all the menus and server trays.
Creative cart for holding the menus and trays
Cafe Belong has a quick-service take-out counter as well as a dine-in space for breakfast, lunch, brunch (on the weekends), and dinner!
The space inside
What nice design on the ceiling!
Our server that day was a very nice and friendly lady who catered to our needs — especially since we had a loud and happy infant at our table. She gave him crayons with a colouring sheet to keep him happy. 🙂
For lunch and dinner, Cafe Belong offered a prix fix meal of sorts. For $19, you could choose two courses of a three-item menu or for $26, you could choose all three items. This seemed like such a great deal and we both decided upon it. The only difference was that Cyn went for the three-course while I opted for the two-course.
Lunch menu and “House Supper” menu
Again, it was a beautiful day for the patio! The large black umbrellas helped to block the direct sunlight for an enjoyable meal.
Patio views!
Muskoka chairs
The view behind me
To start, Cyn received the Stone Soup for the Day. Unfortunately, I don’t remember what exactly was in it (I think eggplant or something… it was a chilled soup). I tasted it and Cyn was correct in saying that it tasted like salsa.
Stone Soup for the Day
Since the menu at Cafe Belong changes seasonally and feature the best available ingredients, the ingredients for the Tartine are not the same from day to day. For the day that we were there, the Tartine had eggplant and roasted yam (I believe) among some dressed leaves and micro greens. This was a good portion for lunch and looked so wonderful with different shades of colour.
Tartine
-served with dressed leaves and micro greens
The ingredients were indeed fresh! The Tartine was like an open sandwich. I liked the ingredients on top of the toast but I did think that the toast was over-toasted. The bottom of the toast from both ends were charred black (and thus very crunchy and hard to chew through). I avoided eating those areas. However, the middle of the toast where the bulk of the ingredients sat was great.
Beautiful vegetarian lunch
Our dessert was the Strawberry Pavlova. This had a meringue and macerated Ontario strawberries with a lavender whipped cream, blueberry syrup, and lemon curd. This was beautiful! It was like a work of art (fine dining perhaps). There were some edible flowers on the plate too which gave some texture to the dessert.
Strawberry Pavlova
-meringue and macerated Ontario strawberries with a lavender whipped cream, blueberry syrup, lemon curd
Take a bite of the crunchy pavlova!
We both found the dessert overall was way too sweet. The ingredients were once again very fresh. I would have liked to share this dessert to divide up the sugar intake a bit that day.
Storefront as part of the Evergreen Brick Works building
Such a pretty light fixture
I’m very glad that I got to try Cafe Belong with Cyn! Maybe I’ll find myself here for dinner or brunch or lunch in the future (although I do think that their prices for the regular items are a little high…) — I’m not writing off their restaurant but definitely wouldn’t run back here any time soon.
