Restaurants
Frankly Eatery
Frankly Eatery has added its name to the numerous worthy brunch destinations dotting Queen East in Leslieville. There's really no shortage of places here to get a good fill of pancakes, eggs or French toast come the weekend. Okay Okay Diner, Lady Marmalade, Toast and Ed Levesque are just a few of the standouts.
You don't need to go far to find Frankly Eatery. It's next to Okay Okay and across the street from Pulp Kitchen. Since it opened earlier this summer they've been offering brunch with a bit of a twist. Their healthy, all-day South Asian inspired brunch items are unique to the area and worth experiencing.
Inside, pleasant scents of spice mingle with freshly brewed coffee and the busy sounds of a kitchen in prep mode. Hits from the 80's (Roxy Music, The Smiths, XTC) emanate from the sound system. The small space may be plain but it does have the charm of a family-run eatery where the owners are completely hands on.
We begin with the Gobhi Parantha ($8.40), a large Indian style toasted flatbread stuffed with spiced cauliflower and served with a delectable cilantro sour cream and side salad.
The flatbread is pancake-fluffy yet tastes like a mealy papadum. It's aromatic but not at all spicy in a hot sense. The side salad comes lightly drizzled with honey balsamic vinaigrette.
I'm not usually a big fan of cilantro and avoid it when possible but I manage to thoroughly enjoy the homemade cilantro and sour cream sauce that comes with the Gobhi Parantha. It's both refreshing and adds a dimension of freshness to the flatbread's earthy taste.
The Cheddar Apple sandwich ($7.00 - top photo) brings together slices of cheddar, thinly sliced apples and a savoury pure maple butter spread on a toasted walnut raisin bread that also comes with a side salad.
The cheddar, apple, maple butter and raisin bread work very well together and create an almost pastry-like experience. This sandwich tastes superb and is a double-decker meal that's perfect for a quick brunch or lunch.
Frankly Eatery also serves scrambled eggs ($8.50-$10.50) with chives and cheddar, Egg Bhurji (spicy Indian style scramble with onions, peas and tomatoes served with salad and a baguette), smoked salmon and pesto and prosciutto.
For sandwiches and wraps ($8.50-$9.50) they offer a chikpea wrap which the owners promise is a good vegetarian option and a tandoori chicken wrap that I plan on going back for.
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mmmmm
I'm working my way through the menu, and have yet to find something less than awesome. The Indian-inspired dishes offer a sexy alternative to the abundance lack-lustre typical brunch options. All flavours are well-balanced, even in the Jalapeno-Pesto Palooza. The oft-overlooked side-salads that typically function as space-fillers are a surprisingly delicious addition to most dishes at Frankly. So good you may be momentarily distracted from the main dish, thinking to yourself that vegetarianism wouldn't be that hard... The French Toast is impossibly light and fluffy. The Tandoori Pulled Pork Tacos, with perfectly scrambled eggs, are my kind of breakfast. All of the wraps are cleverly combined flavour explosions. Even the fresh Blueberry Bran laof is delectable; and that's coming from someone who hates bran AND blueberries.
I would reccomend anything on the menu. I would even devour a plate of kitchen scraps from Frankly.
What's more, the music is great, and the server is attentive and down-to-earth.
Any Leslieviller who hasn't tried Frankly should be flogged for public display.