Light Cafe - Offering Light Meals, Desserts and Coffee/Tea on Baldwin St.

A clean and modern space, Light Cafe 路燈咖啡 will appeal to those looking for a light meal or leisure chat with friends over waffles and coffee or tea.  Light Cafe is originally from Taiwan and I believe this is their first branch outside of Taiwan.  Gosh, how I miss cafes in Taiwan!!

You'll notice quite a bit of detail went towards the atmosphere, menu, and food presentation.  Especially important in this age of social media, pictures are worth a thousand words.  Typically, cafes like these have average food (of course there are some exceptions that also have stellar food) but the draw for people is the food presentation and the space is usually a haven for a girls get-together. Not to say guys don't go, but walk into a cafe like this in Taiwan and the majority of patrons are groups of females.  However, if it's near a university than there will be a more balanced ratio, but I would say girls still out number guys.

Anyway back to my meal.  I was by myself on a Monday and ordered the smoked duck salad and an iced Southbrook berry herbal tea. Although I thought about ordering one of their sandwiches, the smoked duck is not too common in a salad and I had quite a bit of bread for breakfast so a salad it was.  The salad was very fresh and paired with their yuzu salad dressing, it added just the right amount of zing.  But, I would have liked a little more butternut squash or tomatoes or both to make it a little more like an entree salad.  Overall, a good salad.  But to be honest, I was still hungry afterwards...I think I would have even settled for just a slice of buttered toast with my salad.

The berry tea was also very nice; both in taste and presentation.  A nice berry taste, not too sweet, no artificial aftertaste and quite refreshing. I also liked how they presented the tea with frozen berries and apple slices...makes the price of the tea a little more worth it.  If I were to say anything negative, it would be that there was a ton of ice in the drink!

It's interesting that the cafe decided to use Pluck Teas which is a local purveyor of tea rather than Taiwanese tea.  I've heard about Pluck Teas, but have not purchased or tried any of their teas until now.  Pluck Teas tries to separate themselves by stating that they use local ingredients in their tea blends.  Of course the tea leaves are from overseas, but the added ingredients could be local depending on the blend.  On their website, they list whether they use local product or not however in a blend with 6 ingredients, I'm not sure if all are local when they say local.  I've noticed Pluck Teas showing up in a lot of places now and I think it definitely owes to the personal touch of the founder...definitely look out for this tea company!

Quite spacious

Looking out through their front window.

In terms of value, I would say that is where the salad was lacking.  It was over $10 and in a city like Toronto where you have lots of great options for salads (e.g. IQ foods for a quick lunch option), it's a bit steep for what you get.  Especially when most of the salad is actually spinach and mixed greens. Despite this, Light Cafe is definitely worth a second visit to try their sandwiches which looked very appetizing, and their waffles and ice cream!  Oh, and bring CASH, they don't accept anything else.

Also, if you're a coffee fan, they also have some interesting coffee options.  Their Light Cafe Special coffee and the cotton candy coffee (the online menu offers a picture of these items) are definitely worth a look!

Light Cafe 路燈咖啡
23 Baldwin St.
Toronto, ON M5T 1L1
647-347-3883
http://lightcafe.ca/