Restaurants
Dutch Dreams
Dutch Dreams is a kitschy, cutesy ice cream shop just north of St. Clair that's hard to miss. The outside is decorated with life sized ice cream cones, while the inside is bursting with colour, character and knick-knacks. A family owned business for 30 years the place keeps winning awards for their tasty treats.
We walk in and it smells like someone just baked a vanilla cake. I soon pin point the source as freshly pressed waffle cones. All their cones are handmade and the scent is seducing. Some people may argue that half the fun of eating ice cream is choosing the right cone. Dutch Dreams has a ridiculous number of cone options including vanilla Oreo, Skor, M&M, sprinkles and marshmallow caramel.
To go with the cones, they also have plenty of homemade classic ice cream flavours. Gold medal ribbon, pomegranate sherbet, French vanilla, cotton candy, tiger tail and chocolate chip mint are some of the favourites. A regular cone is ($3.24), two scoops ($3.99) and a kiddy cone is ($2.46).
They also offer two scoop sundaes and smoothies. Behind the ice cream, shelves are stacked with products imported from the Netherlands like cookies and candy.
I try one of their best-sellers, Jamaican grape nut, with a peanut sprinkled cone and Cory selects cotton candy with a vanilla sugar cone. They add fresh blueberries, pineapple and whip cream on top of both, without request. My grape nut is fantastic; it's light, crunchy, creamy and refreshing.
The place can get a little bit crowded because of the limited space. For those who want to hang out there's a tiny "fun house" back room. We walk up a few pink steps and it looks like a kid's toy box exploded. Cows, Santa Clauses and clowns hang from the ceiling, while the tables are tiled with photos of windmills and flaxen haired Dutch children.
I'm sure kids and families enjoy the room, but we prefer to eat our ice cream outside. It can get a little bit overwhelming in there, especially while the Mamma Mia soundtrack blares from the stereo. But the ice cream speaks for itself.
Dutch Dreams is open year round everyday. Summer hours: 12 (noon) - 1 a.m.
Photos by Cory Vanderploeg
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Vaughan Road from St. Clair. The multi-colored jugs outside caught my
attention so I went in to take look. It's a cramped ice cream shop. I just
missed a line up, from the looks of at least a half dozen people sitting
outside licking up their ice creams. I think the ice cream is great, especially
the topping (which I didn't expect at all). My major complaint is the young
man serving me had sweat pouring down his nose. I almost turned around
and left the store because so disgusted. If he's sweating, either the air-
conditioning wasn't working or there isn't any air-conditioning to keep
the workers cool. I don't know. I wasn't about to let this go. I told him
to wipe his nose. He looked at me with a kind of stunned look for a second and then
and after he kind of processed what I told him, took his hand and began to wipe his
nose. I quickly told him 'stop....not with your hand, use a kleenex'. I'm thinking, 'wouldn't
it occur to him to wipe his face with a paper towel, kleenex, anything but his hands?!!
I let him make my ice cream. That was my first and perhaps last time visiting Dutch Dream.
I was turned off the uncleanliness of the place. Someone should really take a bucket and clean the windows where the ice cream is kept. They should also be keeping the place cool
enough so that their employees aren't letting their sweat drip into the ice cream. Guess this could apply to a lot of places that 'look good' from the outside. I can just dream on...
Never again though.
My boyfriend and some of our friends arrived to get some ice cream just before closing time. Initially my boyfriend was reluctant to get some ice cream so he had some of mine. We all stood just outside eating our ice cream when - two minutes after Dutch Dreams closed - my boyfriend decided to get his own cone. So, back in he went. Only to be told that to buy an ice cream, WOULD BE DOUBLE THE COST OF WHAT IT WAS TWO MINUTES BEFORE.
Confused, my boyfriend came back outside to tell me. I was livid and mortified. We yelled that they sucked and threw our dirty napkins in their shop.
YOU SUCK, DUTCH DREAMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Anyone remember Dave Chappelle's movie "Half Baked"... If you do you'll remember that Dutch Dreams is in it!
Hey, KL, you might have noticed that I said they were closed for LITERALLY two minutes and the door was still open. The actual shop hadn't closed and indeed, they were willing to serve my boyfriend ice cream FOR DOUBLE THE PRICE. It was a mere example of supply and demand; when my boyfriend decided he wanted some ice cream, Dutch Dreams responded to the demand but upped the price.
We weren't arrogant; don't be a dick and don't be condescending, "baby". Or, as they like to say here, "get it right up yae, ya c*nt"
It's funny because while walking through the Beach(es) that same summer, we came across Baskin Robbins which - SHOCK, HORROR - was STILL open past midnight with the door wide open. We peeked our head in and asked if they were still open. Their response? "sure, we close whenever we want". And despite what KL said, it wasn't kids working their but the owners and as such, I suspect they aren't earning peanuts.
So, say what you will, presumptuous, unsympathetic, passive-aggressive Torontonians, but we were in the right and when my boyfriend suddenly decides 1 minute after closing and 2 minutes after leaving Dutch Dreams that he wants ice cream AND Dutch Dreams decides to sell him some - AT TWICE THE COST - they fully deserve being told they suck.
Your boyfriend asked to be served after the establishment closed. Anyone working at the establishment is allowed to tell your boyfriend anything and not give him ice cream. What don't you get about it?
So to conclude, although they were not offering good service, it was their right to do so. They evidently were acting like assholes and their is no need to act that way, and as such they do not deserve your buisiness, nor will they get mine. But at the same time you could have handled their reaction slightly better by making them feel foolish for their ludacrous behaviour.
KJ
However, the line is far TOO long and the staff are extremely inefficient. I live in the neighbourhood, so I see it everyday. On one occassion, we were waiting an hour and only 20 people were served, despite having 4 people on staff. I have been joking for over a year that they need to cut an exit in the wall to reduce congestion.
Best option is to go during the afternoon or on a rainy day, when the line is shorter, but ice cream is still lovely.
LP
I love the little touches like the whipped cream and fruit (or sprinkles, just ask) on top and the occasional Dutch flag stuck in and the awesome Dutch treats, it's not easy to find hagelslag you know!
For anyone complaining about little customer service issues you have to remember that these are teenagers making probably no more than minimum wage that work there, you're not going to get the service of a 5 star restaurant, it's a grab and go ice cream shop.
Anyway I've never had anything but decent service when I've been there. It's usually crazy busy so they aren't going out of their way to chat you up or anything but they seem friendly enough and get your order to you as quickly as they can.
you are stupid who cares there is enough trouble
in the world watch the game sunday
en for godsake shut up hup holland hup
laat de leeuw niet in z,n hempie staan
have against the dutch wow big words
for a adult born and bred
in holland and proud of it
you dont know the dutch
so shut up
and get a life
mayby you are the crasy one
clearly someone hasn't seen austin powers.
I DON'T KNOW THE DUTCH, LOL
watch moar movies.
and yes that was very funny and dont say the dutch sucks
because they lost and were are you from
yeah do watch more movies
mayby watch some european
unless you come from europe
or you must be american haaaaaahaaa
and to be honest, i don't really know what you're talking about.
if you've seen austin powers then you probably would have caught that austin powers reference about the dutch, and you wouldn't think that i said the dutch suck, because i clearly didn't.
get better english literacy skills kthxbye
ps. european films are better than american ones
celebrate that little victory if you want
I love it when people get so riled up they can't spell worth a damn, anymore.
To the person complaining about Torontonians: it's pretty juvenile and narrow-minded to hate on an entire city just because you had a bad experience with some people. The population exceeds the dozen or so individuals you came into contact with. The ice cream shop didn't make an exception for your boyfriend? Darn. That's just unlucky. Bad things happen sometimes, but if you have some more class when things don't go your way you won't care about trivial things for longer than is necessary. So they jacked the price up? Shoot. That's just bad customer service, but the WHOLE city is not responsible for your ice cream woes.
I'm not from Toronto originally but I love this city enough to defend it from prejudice remarks. Bigotry is not the way to go.