I love buffets. Even the really bad ones.  I love that you can try out so many different things, get your food at your own pace, and eat til your buttons pop off your shirt.  There are, however, two major downsides to buffets: The food is made in huge batches and spends a while sitting under a hot lamp diminishing the quality, and I can never really eat enough food to justify the price tag of most buffets.  And, at $25 a head for sunday brunch, the Boiler House is a bit on the steep side.

However, the quality of the food is so superb that even at only eating one and a half plates, I felt satisfied at having spent my money at such an establishment.

There is a pretty wide variety of foods to consume at the buffet.  You have all your continental staples – fresh fruit, croissants, french toast, home fries, scrambled eggs.  But you also have some excellent additional choices such as shrimp cocktail, fresh slices of ham and roast, custom made omelettes, and fresh made belgian waffles.  All the food is kept warm (or cold) and is constantly replenished and kept fresh.

Service was excellent and even though we were located on the second floor tucked away in a corner, our servers were still quick to refill our coffee and collect our plates. To top everything else off, they had a live band performing during brunch too which really help to set the atmosphere.

On the downside, the condiments were tricky to find.  There aren’t any bottles of ketchup or syrup on your table and they’re way down by the other end of the buffet (no where near the french toast or home fries).  For some strange reason, when they’d refill our coffee, they’d only fill it 2/3rds of the way and we had to tell them to top it off.  I understand the need for space to add cream but it was a bit ridiculous.  The final downside is this place rarely ever accepts walkins for Sunday brunch.  You almost always have to book ahead a week in advance.

Over all, the Boiler House had been an excellent experience – one that has further whet my appetite for finer brunch buffets which I plan on scouting around for.

Yes, it’s worth it, but with the Church street location being so close to various coffee shops and Eatons Centre, I hardly see why anyone would wait around outside, especially when Guu will give you a courtesy call 15 minutes before your table is ready.

When you first enter Guu, nearly all the staff stop in their tracks and greet you with a really loud “irasshaimase!” Get used to the volume now because they’re going to be shouting it every time someone else walks in the door.

Our party ordered around 9 tapas (which came to about $70.. pretty cheap) and I’ve got almost no complaints about any of them. The food came instant and was fresh and hot.  The service was amazing with the waitress constantly checking on us to see if we needed anything else or wanted to order more.  They also gave you nice lemon scented warm hand cloths to wipe your hands before you eat – a really thoughtful touch.

Since I’m sure most people have already heard countless times how amazing Guu is, I’m going to forgo describing everything in my usual great detail and instead present you with a bunch of food photos and their description. So here goes…

Okonomiyaki, Beef short ribs, and smoked salmon

Fried Brie with blueberry sauce, tofu salad, mushroom and cheese bibimbap

Deepfried pumpkin with egg in the middle (eat it while it's hot!), black cod, nasu dengaku (eggplant)

My low light iPhone photos do the food no justice.  Guu is good, really good.  However, waiting nearly 2 hours to eat said food isn’t fun unless you plan your evening around it.  Guu doesn’t take reservations so if you don’t want to wait, you should go pretty early around 4pm when the place is starting to open.

For one reason or another, I’m very hesitant to review anything that’s either a chain or a franchise unless it’s local.  I feel like my time is best dedicated towards reviewing locally based restaurants.  I have made a few minor exceptions in the past and I’m about to make one now with The 3 Brewers.  Though, technically, there is only one place in the world called “The 3 Brewers” because all the other locations are all in Quebec and are known as “Les 3 Brasseurs.”

there be beer in there!

Much like the name says, The 3 Brewers centers around the creation and presentation of beer.  The reason why they’re called a microbrewery is because, low and behold, they make their own beer there.  You can even request to take a tour of the place and see all their lovely beer vats.

However, I’m not here for the beer (for the most part), I’m here for the food!  T3B has your standard pub fare.  Burgers, sandwiches, pizza, salads, and even sauerkraut.  But given that this is a micro-brewery, it’s their beer selection that really shines -they have an interesting menu full of different types of beers (white, blonde, amber, brown, and the special brew) and a colourful assortment of different beer cocktails.  We ended up going with the beer cocktails: a monaco and a titi du quartier.  The monaco is a mix of blonde beer, sprite, and grenadine while the titi has creme de cassis instead of grenadine.  Both were decent but I personally preferred the titi du quartier since I’ve come to realize that I don’t like grenadine that much.

For food we ordered the Royal Sauerkraut and a Pulled-Pork Sandwich.  In an astounding 8 minutes after placing our order with the waitress, one of the kitchen staff had our food promptly in front of our faces! A wise foodie friend once told me that food which is served directly by the kitchen staff is good service since you know your food isn’t waiting under a hot lamp for the waitress to eventually pick it up.

The Monaco and the Titi du Quartier

The Royal Sauerkraut was amazing.  It had a combination of sausage, grilled ham, and a pork shank.  The sausage was really thick and incredibly flavourful, the grilled ham was really juicy and nice, and the pork shank was exceptionally well made, nice and tender.  There was also enough sauerkraut on the plate to feed you for a week.

The pulled pork sandwich was full of flavour and sauce.  The pork literally just melted in your mouth!  The topping of onions and swiss cheese were the cherry on top.  The bun that it was in was nicely baked and quite crispy.  This is probably one of the best pulled pork sandwiches I have had.

the yummiest pulled pork sandwich and the royal sauerkraut

As long as you don’t mind waiting up to an hour for your table and congregating with the mass of toursits to be seated, then I would highly recommend that you go check out T3B.  The place has great food, prompt and friendly service and, above all else, excellent beer.  Given the amount of negativity that a lot of my fellow locals and “whiners” seem to give this place, I’d like to add that when I went the place wasn’t that packed (it was a cold and rainy Monday evening).  We didn’t have to wait for a table and our service was prompt.  I can see having a different experience if the place is packed to the brim and the food is being rushed out even faster.  But 8 minutes from order to fork on a slow day is still pretty amazing.

Le Petit Dejeuner (LPD) is tucked in right next to Gabby’s making it pretty easy to miss amidst the countless number of furniture stores adorning King street east.  But if you do happen to be near George Brown College’s downtown campus, be sure to check this little Belgian brunch spot out.

LPD has a very interesting brunch menu with such delights as an apple and brie panino, caramelized french toast, and authentic belgian waffles.  We decided to go with what we assumed most people would order; the Hungry Gal breakfast.  It comes with two eggs, toast, apple coleslaw, home fries (though the menu says potato rosti) and comes with a choice of bacon, sausage terrine, fishcakes, fruit salad, or peameal bacon.

One of ours was ordered with the fishcake, and the other with sausage terrine.  The food came relatively quickly, but I was a bit worried that there was no rosti.  Low and behold, underneath my toast was a sprinkling of home fries.  Is this their version of rosti?  Because if so, they’re not even close.  I sort of wish that the potatoes weren’t underneath my toast as it made my toast really soggy within a matter of minutes.  My second complaint was that the dishes never came with condiments as a default.  Ketchup and jam had to be requested and were put into mini side-bowls.

Back to the potatoes which aren’t rosti –  they were a little undercooked in the middle. but otherwise weren’t too bad. They could have be cooked for a little longer though to give them more of a crisp (and cook the middle).  The fishcakes weren’t too bad, but be warned, they do taste pretty fishy.  Sausage terrine, if you’ve never had it, looks like a cross between meatloaf and spam.  It wasn’t too bad, nice and flavourful, but a little on the dry side.  The apple coleslaw wasn’t all too bad though I couldn’t seem to find any apples in mine.  Perhaps the name was referring to the dressing?  It’s interesting to have a salad with a breakfast dish since they’re usually accompanied by fruit rather than vegetables.  The toast, like I mentioned earlier, was soggy.  Quite possibly from sitting atop the potatoes.  One thing we noted that the waitress never asked if he wanted brown, rye, or white.  I’m guessing brown is the default for this place (or possibly the only type of toast they have).

I would have like to have tried a few more things there.  Mainly the apple and brie panino.  I’m slightly indifferent as to how I feel about LPD.  There were some flaws with their food, but they weren’t bad enough to deter me from ever coming back.

The King is finally back, risen from the dust and rubble of it’s former location across the street.  But does it still deserve the crown of tastiest, fastest, and cheapest thai food in Toronto?

Salad King has always been a fast yet deliciously good and cheap stop for Thai food in Toronto.  It’s a favourite among Ryerson students, alumni and pretty much any Torontonian who frequents downtown.  Unfortunately, last April 2010, a wall of bricks came showering down onto the street just mere steps from Salad King’s doors.  Salad King had to shut it’s doors, but in the meantime, the owner decided rather that instead of waiting to see if the building could be repaired, he would take the spot above Foot Locker just a few steps away.  Reaffirming that he made a good choice in moving the restaurant, the former building also happened to be burnt down by arsonists last December.

It’s been a long year, and after millions of dollars in renovations and a few months of delays, the King is finally back.  Despite it’s new location, not much had changed which is a good thing.  The long cafeteria style steel tables and benches are still there, but added are a few booth type seating areas which I personally absolutely love (sorry folks, I just wasn’t big on rubbing elbows at the long tables with people I didn’t know). When you first walk in you’ll notice that the decor has taken on this sort of web 2.5 twitter-ific bright over-the-top graphic-ey design element to it.  I guess the thought going into it is that it would appeal to the 20-somethings, which are the main clientele of this place.  But being a 20-something, I’m not really a big fan of the printed artwork up everywhere, but I do love the overall aesthetic of the new place with it’s dark hardwood and steel meshed together.  Though the new place is on the second floor above the Foot Locker, there is an elevator you can take up to it if you have difficulty climbing stairs.

So on to the food.  We ordered our three favourite dishes from the past to see if they still stood up to what we had remembered.  Those three dishes are the chicken panang curry, vegetable pad thai, and spicy fish.  Right away we noticed something different – the prices have all gone up by about a dollar.  Okay, that’s easily forgiven.  Prices do go up frequently and they did just spend tons of money on building the new place.  Plus, $8 to $9 for a good thai dish still isn’t too pricey.

Thankfully, much like in the past, service at the King is still top notch.  Your glass of water is always always nearly kept topped off, the servers are usually asking you how everything is every 5-10 minutes, and the food comes relatively quick.  Another favourite feature about Salad King is that you have to choose how many chilis you want in your meal.  I believe the number is between 0 to 20 but people rarely ever go above 5 in my party.  I usually settle with 2 as it that gives the meal enough bite, but without leaving too much of that lingering chemical burn feel on your tongue and throat after each mouthful.

Chicken Panang Curry

If you love the panang chicken, like myself, then you’ll notice that the above photo looks a tad different from the old panang chicken you used to get.  Instead of getting the dish in a giant plate with rice mushed on one side and the curry chicken everywhere, they instead put it separately in a bowl.  On the upside, this does give the meal a cleaner presentation.  However, on the downside, there’s less curry.  In fact, there wasn’t as much chicken pieces in it as there was before.  The good thing is though it’s still incredibly yummy

Vegetable Pad Thai

The pad thai is still an excellent choice at the King, especially the vegetarian one.  I do love the soy pieces they put in it.  However, much like above, there’s less pad thai than there was in the past.  Perhaps also, by raising the prices, they’ve lowered the portion amounts to help get back the money they’ve lost? Who knows…

Spicy Fish

Finally, the spicy fish.  The sauce that they use is sort of a sweet but savory type of watery sauce that every kernel of rice absorbs.  That’s actually what makes this dish so great is the sauce they use.  The fish pieces were also pretty good, as they were in the past, but once again, there were only 6 tiny pieces of fish in the whole dish.  The amount of fish used to be a lot more plentiful in the past.

Without a doubt, I’m glad that Salad King is back.  The food is still great, the service is top notch, and the place is always bustling.  However, I’m a bit saddened by the portion control that’s going on with the dishes.  It could just be opening pains (since today, the 22nd, is the first official day of the reopening), possibly cutting the amount of meat to save costs, or even just holding back the amount to make sure they don’t run out today.  No one really knows and they could definitely up the amounts in a few weeks once they figure out what their daily stock requirements are.  Regardless, I still love Salad King and highly do recommend you go back again!

The Annex; a chic, yet somtimes shunned, hot spot for the trendy undergrads and bearers of thick rimmed glasses sans prescription.  On that popular strip of Bloor street, where restaurants (and tea shops) come and go like night and day, sits quite a few choices for weekend brunch.  Unfortunately, with the closure of Mel’s a while back, most of the choices are rather limiting, unless you prefer to do sushi for lunch.  Thankfully, By The Way Cafe does have a rather decent lunch menu at an edible price.

For this particular brunch, we ordered an omelette, huevos divorelados, and eggs benedict.  If you’re a regular reader of this blog, I’m sure you can figure out who ordered the last ones.  Despite how buzzing the place was, service was generally pretty good there with a constant refilling of our water glasses and we received our plates generally quick.  One quip though was one of the waitresses was going about a round of clearing tables – not of dishes though, but the condiment trays.  Literally moments after we ordered, she had come by and wanted to take away our bowl of creams, sugars, and our holder of fine jellies, jams, and peanut butters.  We let her take the last two since none of us ordered any coffee or tea, but we told her we’d like to keep the jam holder to which her reply was “well you can take what you need then give it to me” which we told her we weren’t sure what we’d need yet since our food hasn’t arrived.  I’m not sure why she was in such a rush to clean off the tables of condiments as they were not getting in our way or anything.

Since we were pretty hungry, we also ordered an appetizer of apples with melted brie.  It was pretty decent although the brie wasn’t too strong and I felt they could have added a few more pieces of pita bread to the plate.

The huevos divorelados weren’t too bad though the only problem we felt with the dish was that the salsa had a very “chemically” taste, both the green and the red salsa.  Though, over all, it was pretty nice having both the red and the green salsa on one dish.

Italian sausage omelette

The Italian sausage omelette I had was a good choice (though I opted out on having jalapenos on it as per Sara’s recommendation that dill and jalapenos might not work so well together).  The sausage gave a nice bite to the dish though my only complaint would be that the ingredients of the omelette were all sort of clumped in the middle and not spread out through the entire egg.  The home fries were amazing, nice and crispy on the outside and soft in the middle.  Definitely made from scratch at this place.

The eggs benedict was also a great choice.  You may have noticed in the photos that the hollondaise sauce looks a little greener than you’d expect.  Mostly because this sauce has a sprinkling of dill and isn’t too rich like most sauces on eggs benedict are.  It was quite good and Sara mentioned that the sauce had a nice kick to it.

So, to conclude the jam drama, by the end of our meal we had used up seven jams.  Had we have chosen the amount of jams before seeing our meals, we would have each only taken one, then bothered the waitresses for more.  So folks, the lesson here is keep your jam tray handy!

Though we do consume our jams more than the average person would, it’s just more convenient having extra jams within arms reach when you need them.

Overall, I would recommend By The Way Cafe for a nice weekend brunch spot in the Annex.