LA PETITE COLLINE & SHAN SHAN CAFE — Restaurant in Toronto

I visited on two different occasions to compare the quality of food and service. Came in the afternoon once - food was not fresh. Came again early in the morning during opening time and still food was not fresh or perhaps the quality was not that great.

Appearance: 2/5⭐️ I Ordered BBQ Ribeye Toast & Wasabi Tuna Toast - both SO OILY. Why were they both drenched in oil instead of toasted? You could visibly see that lettuce used was translucent, soggy and wilted already, very cheap amount of the filling inside the actual toast. There was more egg than other ingredients. Not balanced flavours. I Gave them another chance and came early in the morning, got Mustard Sausage Bun, Milky Filling Bun, Custard Bun. Both buns were grocery store quality pre-packaged in plastics while the baguette was supposedly made “fresh” in the store and came in a loose brown bag. Matcha late is only one size and came in a hot cup with a sealed lid - bubble tea style.

Smell: 1/5⭐️ Not much to add, two toasts smelled like oil - as if that was the main ingredient and the buns had no smell at all. Drink was sealed.

Taste: 2/5⭐️ I’ll start with the Ribeye & Tuna sandwiches. When you take a bite of the sandwich the oil gushes out, oil is the main ingredient and flavour that overpowers everything else. Why does it have to be so greasy? Baked Buns were a bit better in terms of taste, milky filling and custard filling was great - not too sweet. The mustard sausage baguette was overly salty and I could not taste the mustard in there. Matcha latte was good, balanced tea to sweetness ratio.

Texture: 2/5⭐️ Tuna Toast & Ribeye Toast were a disappointment, not pleasant to hold, not pleasant to eat, so messy, so greasy and soggy, they tasted like they were made a while ago and they were sitting out waiting to be served, not made fresh to order. Milky filling bun & Custard bun were soft and bouncy. The Mustard sausage baguette was SO HARD, I couldn’t take a bite out of it. Immediately a red flag considering I ordered it when you guys just opened, I’m confused as to why it wasn’t fresh?

Temperature: 1/5⭐️ I have to give one star for the matcha latte - ordered hot and it came hot. Food wise both toast, buns and baguette were served cold. I expected at least the sandwiches to be made fresh and be warm and toasted but unfortunately that was not the case.

Flavour: 1/5⭐️ The only consistent item would be the drinks-they are made fresh to order and they are tasty. Buns are not bad, but they are not baked fresh In store. They are your typical T&T pre-packaged in plastic style buns. And the food items made fresh in store are not good, not even fresh. With such big volume of customers you guys get daily, I’m truly shocked how bad the quality of food is. It has potential, but perhaps people running the store don’t care much about the actual QUALITY or taste of what they are serving, it’s all about getting your money and getting you out of the door as quickly as they can instead of taking the time to prepare quality orders.

Price: 1/5⭐️ When you consider the taste, quantity of food you’re getting, and the overall quality you will realize this place is a rip off. 21$ for 3 buns and 1 drink. Or 35$ for 2 cheaply made oily sandwiches and 1 drink. Your prices are at the top, yet the quality is bad.

Customer Service: 1/5⭐️ First time I pre-ordered it said my order was supposed to be ready in 20minutes, not a problem, left a comment making sure it’s made fresh but closer to when 20 minutes will be up. I come in, turns out my order was made too soon, and ended up sitting on the counter getting cold and ruined. Second time I pre-ordered and made a comment to make sure they make it ASAP as I was on the way and tried to have it made fresh. I came in 10 minutes later, nothing was ready. About 4 customers inside, at least 4 employees on the floor and no one could package 3 buns for me and make one drink. Once the order was made, they didn’t even bother to package it in their signature teal colour bag, everything was handed...

Came to this place on September 6 around 12 for lunch with my wife on her birthday. The pictures we saw online were very attractive and convinced us to give this place a try. The location was pretty good, just off the highway and very easy to find. They have a free 3 hour underground parking which is perfect on a hot day. The cafe seems to consist of a bakery called La Petite Colline and Shan Shan cafe all in one store. The atmosphere looks very high class and the prices are just as high. They don't have menus but have these QR codes on the tables which you can scan for the menu. However that is just for looking and cannot be used to order food. We ordered our food from the waitress which was very polite. Shortly after we ordered we got utensils and our drinks. The coffee was very pretty and came in these not very classy cups but was not too bad. We ordered a yuzu fried chicken which came afterwards. It tasted very good but the lime was so dry we couldn't even squeeze any juice from it. My wife ordered a pink pasta which looked beautiful and tasted amazing. The portion was a little small but was just enough for her. I ordered a Shan Shan omurice which came last. My omurice looks amazing as well but however the taste was not on par with the looks. The rice inside was very hard, it seems to be left over rice that was reheated in the microwave. The steak was tender but had no taste as well. The red wine sauce which should be the soul of this dish was very weak. Not enough wine and savoury taste to lift the rest of the dish. My wife said the rice was fine, so that just means some people like chewy rice and I rather softer rice. Everything was good so far but after my wife finished her dish it went south. The male server was very pushy and was always looking over our shoulders. They took away our dishes as soon as our forks touched the table. It felt very rushed and not very relaxing, almost like they wanted us to leave right after eating. The female waitress was nice and asked us each time as she took our dishes. The male server worked very fast and even took our utensils when we still had food on the table. That made my wife really upset, since we still had food on the table but she didn't have utensils to eat it with. I ended up eating the rest by myself while my wife watched me. I offered my wife to use my fork but she lost her mood to eat since the service was bad. After I finished we hurried paid and left. Originally we were going to buy some pastry from La Petite Colline but after getting rushed to leave we didn't buy any and left. This experience was not all that bad but we...

So I took my gf here for a 1pm brunch reservation on a saturday.

Haven't really been to this strip mall before but I knew about it because I always drive by it when I'm going through the woodbine & steeles intersection. I also registered for a Yelp elite event at Canadian Thai which is literally in this same plaza.

The inside is very modern looking. Brightly lit, lots of glass. When you first enter you are greeted by the bakery. A little past the waiting area and it's the cafe seating area.

I noticed that the menu is actually pretty big and has a lot of variety. For this visit we decided to try a couple things.

Mac n cheese: If I'm keeping it real, this mac n cheese had decent seasoning but fell kinda short. Having just eaten mac n cheese at Smash Kitchen in Unionville, I was trying to find redemptive qualities LOL. The cut-up sausages as garnish were cute but it made the dish kinda kiddy. They used breadcrumb topping but the breadcrumbs didn't cover enough of the surface and didn't create a crust. The macaroni they used was your typical elbow mac. Finally, the menu said it was a 3 cheese mac but I certainly couldn't taste 3 cheeses (also, for a good mac you should be able to see the cheesy strings when you pick up the macaroni and there was none of that).

Pink shrimp linguine: Ok this was actually really nice! The flavour was on point. The shrimps were juicy and seasoned well. Our only gripe was that it definitely should've been priced in the $15-20 range because of how small it was. I I can get pasta along yonge st in North York, pay around the same price and get a larger portion so that was a lil ridiculous.

Strawberry milk custard thick toast: Great quality bread and the berries cut the richness of the condensed milk for a perfect bite.

Roasted iron goddess latte (w/ oat milk): My gf said this was good. She said it was quite subtle in flavour. They happened to have oat milk as a substitute for reg milk which was a plus in her books.

We definitely want to come back to try some of the other items on the cafe menu. I think pastries and buns is what this place is famous for so I'm leaning towards trying one of the sandwiches/buns next time. A lot of the breads and pastries also seemed to be sold out already by the time we started looking at the menu at 1pm so that's something to keep in mind. I also want to try the shan shan omurice but most likely I'll have to get that for lunch one day as it seems kinda...