Restaurant: Crave Healthy Habit
Location: 66 Wellington Street West, Toronto, ON M5K 1A1
Price Range: $
[wp-review]
As part of my effort to be healthier, I have been trying to either find cheaper and healthier breakfast alternatives (not McDonald or Tim Hortons), or what I should be REALLY doing is to bring my own breakfast but… I’m lazy hehe. To be honest, one of the biggest issue I often find with “healthy” places are that they charge ridiculous prices that make it financially prohibitive to frequent them. So when I heard the new that Crave is opened near my workplace and they also offer breakfast, I needed to check out the prices!
A little bit of background, Crave Healthy Habits is a chain that aims to serve healthy food choices that are both nutritious and tasty, yet at affordable prices. This particular location is located at the TD Centre in the PATH, and I’m only aware of another location that is near St. Andrew station. Most of their clients are employees who work around the PATH in the Financial District, so you will see a lot of suits here!
Despite locating in a food court, Crave is spacious and very modern looking, which is completely different than other stores in the same food court. Though they have several locations, from pictures I believe this is the nicest location so far for Crave, and of course with very friendly staff as well :).
Although they have an open kitchen concept, I believe the area above is mainly used during breakfast, whereas the kitchen on the previous picture is used for their soup, salad and steamed lunch boxes. Because of this concept, you can see all the fruits are freshly prepared right in front of your eyes. Occasionally Crave will run out of certain fruit, and the staff have always happily given me more of any fruit that I want, such as strawberry!
Do note that Crave only sell their breakfast boxes from 7AM to 11AM with the exception to the yogurt parfait, and all other items on the menu is for lunch from 11AM to closing.
Here we have the time oat for $5 and just look at that vibrant colors from all the ingredients! For $5 I thought this was fairly priced for the amount of food that you are getting.
The first thing you will probably noticed is that… there is no pecans. Since they aren’t my favorite, I have asked to substitute pecans with almonds on all my orders, and I’m sure the staff have known me by now because of this lol. The rolled oats were soft and warm, not too mushy or gluey. I found the texture of the strawberry avocado puree is more of a syrup, which is actually even better as I felt a creamier puree might be too heavy and filling for this. Although it was quite bland on its own, but mix it well and the natural sweetness from the fruits and the sweet puree really boost up the flavor of the rolled oats.
Another really heathy and high protein choice! Again, loved the natural sweetness from the fruits and I like how there was just a touch of maple syrup, so the entire dish isn’t too sweet. I believe the yogurt is sugar-free as well and it was just a bit tangy. The lemon curd was such a nice surprise addition and it really gave a nice zing to wake you up in the morning! However I prefer the Time oat than morning run as I found Time Oat to be more filling yet not too heavy in the tummy :).
For $4 the portion was huge and it’s actually even cheaper than the ones at Tim Hortons or Starbucks! I believe the parfait at those two shops cost around $3-4 and they aren’t exactly healthy lol… Note that the yogurt parfait is available throughout the day so if you are looking for a mid-day snack that is similar to the morning run, get this!
Other than yogurt or rolled oats, Crave also offer toasts for breakfast as well. I actually only got this once and I’m not sure if $5 for this is justifiable. I guess it could be, but the portion was a bit smaller and I felt I can get something bigger like the rolled oats for the same price? Don’t get me wrong though, this was absolutely delicious! The fresh pomegranate seeds gave a slight crunch with every bite and really cut down the creaminess of the avocado. The puree was creamy and fresh, along with the distinctive sour flavor of the bread and drizzled with just right amount of olive oil, it was quite filling and satisfying!
As you guys can tell by now, I LOVE LOVE Crave. On weekends I actually miss and ‘crave’ for their healthy and nutritious breakfast (see what I did there :p), and wish they would have another location near me. For breakfast, I found the prices at Crave to be very competitive and perhaps even cheaper than other shops. With that said I can’t speak for their salad or steamed lunch as I bring my own lunch everyday :).