Biryani and Da Best Pilipino Bakery

Tried a couple new places today. The first was Exotic Tandoori, a little Pakistani hole in the wall on Charles St just west of Yonge. They have some assorted curries sitting buffet-style in some heaters around the restaurant, but I was there for the biryani.
The biryani is just some spiced rice with a chicken drumstick hidden underneath. They have three levels of spice - regular, medium, and hot. I had a regular which was in fact somewhat spicy, but I think I'd go for the medium next time. I think they just have varying amounts of chili flakes. It didn't come with any raita-like sauce but I picked up a little yogurt from the grocery store, which helped when the rice started getting to be a bit much. Anyway, the guy who brought us, a international student from Calcutta, told me that this was, on the grand scale, a slightly below-average biryani. So what was the big deal? It was $2.50! Not a bad cheap eat.

On our way home tonight, I decided to check out Da Best Pilipino Bakery, a, you guessed it, Filipino bakery I found out about on torontoist. It's a tiny little storefront on Bathurst just north of St. Clair. We ended up getting three bags of goodies, which totaled $3.50.

First up was the ensaymada, a soft brioche-ish bread covered with a sugary butter. This is the small roll - the big roll (at $2.50, a buck-fifty Vietnamese sub more expensive) has some cheese on top as well. It's pretty addictive stuff.

We also bought a bag of Hopia Ube, 4 for $2. The bread is a harder than the ensaymada bread, and the ube (purple yam) filling is sweet and thick. This was pretty tasty but not that addictive - you wouldn't eat all 4 at once.
Finally, we got one of these star-shaped buns which was sugared and buttered on top like the ensaymada, but with a much heavier bread. Alright, but I'd rather eat the ensaymada.
Overall, the baked goods were tasty enough, although they didn't quite measure up to the ones I've had at Goldilocks bakery in Vancouver - I thought the breads might not have been the freshest, which I suspect might be due to low turnover of the huge amount of stock they have. They do have a lot of other breads which aren't topped with sugary goodness - I'll have to try those next time.