T.O.bites | Toronto Food & Restaurant Blog

I know, I know.. it’s an Irish pub and really isn’t a restaurant place and is more catered to the drinking crowd.  But they have a menu, and on a recommendation of a co-worker, Ashley and I decided to head over there for lunch.

We usually walk by it every day seeing as how we work right around the corner.  During the summer, Fionn’s is packed on the front patio.  I think we tried to check it out in the summer but were always told we’d have to wait 15 minutes for a seat.  Well it’s November now and the patio is put away, so we decided to check it out for lunch.

You’ll notice with this review, the photos look really well done.  I know I tout that I use the iPhone to take my “incognito” food photos but this time we had Ashley’s gigantic SLR with us and decided we’d take some nicer photos.  The waitress did comment on how nice Ashley’s huge camera was, so yes, they do realize you’re taking photos of their food.  Whether or not they think you’re going to review it is up for debate.

With the waitress’ recommendation, I ordered the Prime Rib burger with cheese, while Ashley went with a chicken caesar salad (without the chicken) and a side order of french fries.  There are a few vegetarian options on their menu such as a veggie burger but a lot of them contained mushrooms which Ashley is allergic to.

As for our drinks, I stuck with water while Ashley had a coke.  One good thing about the drinks is that they are pretty tall.  One thing I hate about restaurants is when they give you tiny glasses of water.  When I drink water, I usually do it in huge quantities and down it pretty quick.  So if I get a tiny glass and I have to call someone to refill it every 5 minutes, it’s a bit of an annoyance.  Any how, the glasses here are big!

Our food took about 20 minutes or so to arrive.  My burger looked tiny at first glance but was actually quite filling.  The crispy onions on the top added a nice bit of flavor, but be prepared to buy some gum after unless you don’t mind having your coworkers endure your dragon onion breath.  The meat of the burger had a nice smokey flavor, much like if it were done on an outdoor charcoal barbeque.  It was also a  pretty thick burger and you could tell the patties were hand made.  I grow tired of the standard flat frozen burgers so having a thick hand made patty was most excellent.

The fries were pretty good and had a light sprinkle of sea salt on top of them.  They were nice and crisp on the outside while fluffy on the inside.  Probably one of the better thick cut fries I’ve had in a while.

Ashley said her caesar salad was huge (well it was $9!) and was okay but was a little bit on the dry side.  The croutons appeared to be pieces of sliced texas toast which were toasted then placed in the salad.  They weren’t like the regular croutons you usually get but I guess it’s nice that a place is taking it upon themselves to make their own ingredients (if that is the case).  But because of that, they lacked the taste of seasoning that croutons usually have.

For all this food, our bill came to $34.  Ouch!  Overall the food was okay.  There were no major faults but it wasn’t the best I’ve ever had.  But I guess coming from an Irish Pub chain, I can’t expect too much… I just wish the bill was about $10 cheaper.

Average Price: $9 – $15 per entree
Hours: Sun-Thur 11am to 1am, Fri-Sat 11am to 2am
Address: 235 Bloor St. East
Phone: 416-966-3006
TTC Directions: Get off at Sherbourne Subway station and walk west two blocks to Jarvis.

Cora’s has become quite popular in the last decade.  Infact, I don’t know a single person living in Toronto who doesn’t know what Cora’s is… except for my mom!  To put it simply, I told her that it’s like eating from a greasy spoon but with piles of fruit on that spoon.  Yes, in my world, Cora’s has always been known as the place you want to go when you want your filling of fruit.

Whenever I go to Montreal, it’s not hard to find a Cora’s.  They’re as abundant there as Starbucks in Vancouver.  Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for Toronto, with our lone Cora’s downtown sitting way down by John and Front streets.  Thankfully, this summer, a new Cora’s opened up on Carlton St, just east of Yonge.

Sara, Antony, and myself went this past weekend for brunch around 2pm and the place was packed.  We had to wait in a 15 minute lineup and there wasn’t really much room to stand.  I can see this being a problem going there on a cold yet busy day, where the lineup easily pushes beyond the front door leaving you standing on the street.  The funny thing about this new location as well is that from the entrance, it looks quite tiny.  But once you’re actually inside, you’ll see that the place is pretty huge.  I can’t remember what ambiance music they play in the background at the Front St Cora’s but at the Carlton location, they seemed to be pumping it with the Top 10 dance/club hits that morning.  I wonder why this is.  Perhaps due to the store’s location to the village.. who knows?

Sara and I ordered the special smoothie of the day while Antony got an English breakfast tea.  The smoothie that day was a blended puree of cranberries, raspberries, and strawberries.  It was pretty good although I personally felt it could have been filtered a bit more.  Sara, on the other hand, enjoyed the fact that with each slurp, you could bite down and pop the tiny seeds in your mouth.

As for the tea, well we all agree that Cora’s tea pot isn’t the greatest.  It’s actually kind of cheap, but in an Ikea sort of way.  You see, even though there’s that black plastic grip at the top for pouring, it was still nearly impossible to hold onto without burning your fingers.  The fact is it actually looks like it’s supposed to be used as a vase for flowers.

For our main entrees, Antony and myself both went with the 1990s Harvest, a plate containing two pieces of chocolate brioche dipped in french toast batter (which is eggs with cinnamon and nutmeg), along with bacon and an egg, topped with a mountain of fruit.  Sara went with her favorite, but always good, theo’s omelet.  It comes with a variety of vegetables in the omelet and topped with melted cheese and a side of fries with toast.

Antony’s entree was ordered with bacon extra crispy and mine with sausage and the egg scrambled.  When Antony’s order came, the bacon didn’t come crispy.  Fortunately, our nice waitress noticed that and got him an additional place of bacon on the side, this time extra crispy.  The french toast like brioche was pretty good, and had just the right amount of chocolate in it to make each bite an amazing one.  One thing about this dish though is that there are way too many sweet things on this plate and not enough savory things.  I suppose having one egg scrambled on your plate doesn’t look as plentiful as having a sunny side up egg, but looking at the amount of scrambled egg on my plate, I felt a bit gypped.

Sara’s omelet came with the cheese sort of sprinkled on after it was made.  This resulted in unmelted cheese, yuck!  Our waitress quickly had them melt the cheese for Sara so in the end, it was all good.  Sara’s omelet was fantastic and as she says, “is always a safe choice”.  I didn’t try it this time so I can’t really comment on the taste of it but at least it looked pretty good.  One thing Sara did note is that she felt her fruit was a little bit on the unripened side.  For some reason, her kiwi still had its skin on too.

Cora’s is a safe choice if you want a nice sit down brunch.  Almost all of their food options are great and their menu has pretty much remained the same for years.  On the downside, some things are a bit pricey compared to other brunch places (2.50 for tea?!) but the quality and quantity is what justifies it.

Average Price: $8 – $14 per entree
Hours: Mon-Sat 6:00am-3:00pm, Sun 7:00am-3:00pm
Address: 27 Carlton St.
Phone: 416-340-1350
TTC Directions: Get off at College subway station and walk half a block east on Carlton on the south side of the street.  (note: Carlton turns into College on the west side of Yonge St.).  Alternatively, if you take the College/Gerrard streetcar, you can just get off one stop east of Yonge too.

Japanese restaurants really are a dime a dozen in Toronto and it’s hard to distinguish one from the other.  I eat at Japanese restaurants a lot.  And by ‘a lot’ I mean at least 3 or 4 times a week.  Usually I’ll snap photos and just end up passing on the review because there wasn’t anything particularly bad or good that I needed to share.

So why did I decide to review Sushi Club all of a sudden.  Cause of the mean staff? Nope.  Because of the cramped restaurant seating? Not that reason either, although it is cramped.  Then why? Because their Oyako Don is that good!

It’s my first night meeting up with Sara since she first came back from the UK for a three week long excursion of the english countryside.  We decided to meet up at the very place where we left off the day she left – Sushi Club.  Sushi Club sits on Charles St just south of the Manulife Centre a few doors down from Okonomiyaki (which I so need to go review.  I miss having one of their “pancakes”) hidden from the bright Yonge street lights.  This makes it a nice quiet place and usually means that even though there aren’t too many tables there, you never have to wait long to be seated.

After eating nothing but literally potatoes and red meat for the past 3 weeks, Sara decided to go with a vegetable plentiful bowl of sukiyaki.  I went with, as you may have guessed already, the oyako don.  I’ve been to Sushi Club about 5 or 6 times in the past but I’ve never ordered their oyako don before so I thought I’d give it a try.

Sara’s sukiyaki did come with a lot of vegetables, mainly of the fungii variety, but also came with a lot of boiled tofu pieces which she’s not a fan of (food texture issues).  She said her sukiyaki was a bit on the salty side but overall the broth was pretty tasty, and all the vegetables were plentiful and yummy.

Now as for my oyako don, it was freekin awesome.  It’s such a simple dish but everything about it makes it one of the best oyako dons in town.  I also absolutely loved the cast iron bowl it was served in as well.  It kept it warm for quite a while.  So why was it so much more awesome than other oyako dons?  It’s the sauce they use in it.  It’s sort of a sweet but savory brown sauce that they use, which we couldn’t quite put our fingers on what it’s called.  It’s almost like teriyaki sauce but not quite.  You’d have to taste it yourself to see what I mean.  It has just the right amount of sweetness to it too although I’m sure that may turn a lot of people off, the ones who don’t like apple sauce with their pork chops.

Would I recommend Sushi Club over other sushi places?  It’s hard to say.  Natural Sushi around the corner on Yonge has a lot cheaper dishes which are all generally good.  And you can’t really beat Masa Sushi’s all you can eat, just on the other side of Yonge.  But if oyako don is what your is poison, then I really recommend you check theirs out at least once.

Average Price: $6 – $8 per entree
Hours: weekdays 11:30am – 10:30pm, weekends noon-10:30pm
Address: 41 Charles St. W.
Phone: 416-967-3388
TTC Directions: Get off at Yonge/Bloor station and exit out into Yonge street.  Walk south a block to Charles St. then walk west half a block on the south side.

If you’re going to insert “New York” somewhere into the name of your restaurant, then you’ve got some big shoes to fill.  Does the New Yorker Deli live up to its name?

Sitting right up near Bay and Bloor, the New Yorker Deli caters mostly to the office crowd and probably gets the odd patron heading down from some high end shopping in Yorkville looking for a cheap eat outside of the ‘ville.  The deli was pretty busy on the Sunday afternoon when Antony and I decided to go check it out for brunch.  They do have an amazing breakfast deal for under $5 but unfortunately we weren’t early enough for that.

Antony ordered the three eggs and hash special which came with toast and homefries.  I decided to order a burger with cheese.  Our food came pretty quickly, and we sat where we could see the front counter as the cooks prepared our meals.  Antony’s eggs came over easy, as asked.  The toast was nice and thick texas style toast which is the best toast for egg yolk dipping.  The meat hash wasn’t all that great, nothing too special.  No added spices or anything to give it a burst of flavor.  The home fries were you standard McCain frozen then deepfried variety, almost like the same ones you get from Frans Diner.

My burger was also the same mediocre patty you get from President’s Choice.  Actually, I think it was the same as those thick President’s Choice burgers, as they have a pretty unique gear-like shape, as did this thick burger.  Not saying using frozen supermarket burger patties are a bad thing, but they also lack imagination.  I prefer hand made burgers myself.  The bun was a great choice though, an onion bun, which you don’t see too often in Toronto.  The fries that came with my burger, shoestring, were actially a bit better than the home fries, as they weren’t nearly as potatoe’y in the middle.

A note about the staff, we had a really great waiter serving us, but when he wasn’t present, we did ask the manager (I’m assuming she was the manager as she wasn’t dressed in the usual waiter uniform) for water as she walked by.  Instead of her getting it for us, which was right behind us, she snapped her fingers and told another waiter to grab us water.  Her hands were free and honestly, there was no excuse for her not to grab the water herself.  Antony wanted to add a comment about how she seemed like the type of manager who walks around and looks for stuff that has to be done, but gets everyone else to do it for her.  This creates a stressful environment for the staff and as patrons, we can feel it too.

Overall, the food was okay although most of it seemed to be frozen supermarket food rather than made from scratch. The price of it all was pretty cheap though considering the area, and service was quite fast. I’d definitely go back if I’m in the area for a cheap eat and not feeling up to shopping at the grocery store nearby.

Average Price: $6 – $10 per entree
Hours: Open 7 days a week [I'll get back to you on the actual hours when I find out]
Address: 1140 Bay St
Phone: 416-923-3354
TTC Directions: Get off at Bay Station, at the Bay Street exit, and walk south a block towards Charles St on the west side of Bay