Toaste brings 'honey toast,' a unique dessert treat, to East Lansing

EAST LANSING — Toaste is nestled between Wings Over East Lansing and Tamaki in the Brookfield Plaza strip mall along Grand River Avenue.

Its name is pronounced the same as the toast that pops out of a toaster. 

The honey toast they serve is something very different.

It looks like a little square building made of bread. The "roof" is decorated with ice cream, fruits, homemade whipped cream or custard and sauces.

Cut it open and inside there's a surprise: small chunks of honey toast, with a sugary crunch to the outside and moist on the inside. With each bite, you taste a little bit of everything. 

"Honey toast is originally from Japan," said Cucu Wangsawihardja, co-owner of the family business. "Then Taiwan did it. Now, I think China also has it.

"I think maybe our cafe is the first to have it, at least in Michigan, or around this area."

She and her son, David Yuan, opened the restaurant in April. Although they offer sandwiches, soups and salad, the focus is on honey toast and a variation, honey bites. 

"My dad, Chau Yuan, is Taiwanese," Yuan said. "So we’ve had some of the honey toast in Taiwan and it's quite popular with the younger kids, the college-age kids there. I thought, 'Well, I’m right by MSU, so why don’t we bring it here, too.'"

A key ingredient of honey toast is Taiwanese milk bread, which they make in-house. 

"To be honest, the ingredients are actually your common bread ingredients," Yuan said. "What makes it different, with our bread, is the labor that goes into it, the kneading, the rolling of it, it’s a little bit different. It's true, it's all about the labor of love."

It's toasted to order, caramelized, coated lightly with butter and sugar.

"For the toast, we actually scoop out the inside and reassemble it when we plate it," Yuan said. "It doesn’t look like that, but it is like that."

Then toppings are added, which includes a choice of different fresh fruits and ice cream, and could include homemade custard, jams, sauces and whipped topping.

It takes about three minutes to assemble and the finished product is a work of art.

Meridith Seckman and her 8-year-old daughter Allyric Patterson found out about Toaste on Yelp and visited the restaurant on a recent Wednesday afternoon.

When they saw the desserts, they knew they had to try it.

"I had strawberry honey toast," said Allyric Patterson. "It was good. Everything about it." 

The best part, she said, was the toast. It was "kind of sweet and really tasted good," she said.

"We shared the dessert, then we got the sea salt cream tea," Meridith Seckman said. "It’s an iced tea. It's almost like a sour cream, but it’s sweet, so that’s not usual here in the U.S., right? It's a really thick cream and then you can mix it in."

Toaste first opened its doors on Easter Sunday, though not to the public. While preparing to open, the family's church asked if they could host the Easter celebration there. 

"How could I say no?," Yuan said. "After that day, I just decided to keep our doors open."

David Yuan has worked in restaurants since high school and has always enjoyed it.

"It wasn’t until I was done with school and started working that I realized this is what I wanted to do," Yuan said.

He worked in TV and radio, and in sales, continuing to work in restaurants on the side, even if it was just once a week.

"But there was something about being in the kitchen," Yuan said. "I felt like I belonged in there. I really live for the rush and the chaos all day. I totally started to learn that the kitchen is a place of organized chaos.

"Now making desserts is slowing growing on me,"  Yuan said. "I think the plating part of it is the part that I enjoy doing a lot, making it look beautiful."

While Yuan and his mother run the day-to-day operations, his father, Chau Yuan, comes in every night to help close. And, although the days are long, usually 14 to 15 hours each day, it's rewarding. 

"Seeing people walking out of here happier than when they came in is the best thing about the business," David Yuan said. "You put in so many hours of work, time and energy, and I think that just makes it worth it."

Wangsawihardja says they have a lot of returning customers.

"Some of the customers, some of the international students at MSU, they call me Mama Cucu," Wangsawihardja said. 

"They tell me they are far away from family. They say they feel at home here, like they're in a family. It’s really very encouraging, and I feel blessed when people say they feel good coming here."

TOASTE

1385 E. Grand River Ave., East Lansing; (517) 331-9688

Hours: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday; closed Sunday

Contact Vickki Dozier at (517) 267-1342 or vdozier@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @vickkiD.