Trio Restaurant

Date Visited: Dinner on Wednesday Jul 22, 2015

Company: +Will

Trio Restaurant in the Novotel Hotel in North York was the restaurant my friends and I decided to go for our usual Summerlicious meal. However, Stanley got delayed on his flight from New York so we unfortunately had to cancel that dinner. I discovered that Novotel is actually attached to +Will's place of work though so we could still check it out ourselves another night since I was in town for Wayhome the next day. Helpful thing to note is that they will validate your parking if you use the hotel garage below the building!

The restaurant was very empty when we arrived but looked extremely classy with lots of sun shining in. We took a look at the menu and ended up both getting the exact same things. We started off with the 5-Hour Pulled Pork with caramelized onions and a Canadian cheddar mac & cheese fritter on top. The presentation was on point for this dish, so pretty! There were a lot of flavours on the plate. I wasn't a big fan of the white ranch-like sauce on top as I  didn't think it went well with the pulled pork. Also the fritter was a bit too well-done to the point where it was hard. Unfortunately, it didn't impress me as much as the plating.

For my main, I went for the Grilled Sirloin on a Portobello mushroom on mashed potatoes and chimichurri with frizzled onions. The smell of the chimichurri was very potent, you definitely could smell the basil in there. I asked my steak to be medium-well but it was more well-done as there was no pink whatsoever and it was a tough to chew. Other than that, the rest of the dish was delicious. The portobello was cooked perfectly and the mashed potatoes were very buttery. Extremely filling!

Lastly was the Hazelnut Chocolate Mousse, it came in a cute little glass and was a nice amount to end the meal. It was very light and tasty. 

Food: 2.5/5 - Better than what you would normally find in a hotel restaurant, but could have been better.
Decor: 3/5 - Bright and classy, lots of tables. Very quiet when we were there.
Service: 4/5 - Waiter was kind and very professional.
Willingness to go back: 1/5 - Wouldn't come out of my way to return.
Overall: 2/5

Website: http://www.novotel.com/gb/hotel-0910-novotel-toronto-north-york/restaurant.shtml

Kinton Ramen 4

Date Visited: Dinner on Friday Jun 26, 2015

Company: +Will Ives 

Will and I had plans to go on an Escape Room double date in North York and I thought it would be a great opportunity to get some good Korean food since we were in the area... little did I know that they had a Kinton Ramen down the street from where we were going! It also turned out that my dad brought back some take-out pork bone soup for lunch that day so I already had my Korean fix. I was very excited to try Kinton since I've heard the name so many times. 

The location looked pretty small from the outside and like your typical noodle bar. We entered to the staff yelling (welcoming) us in and were seated for two at the bar as the rest of the place was already full. It was pretty hot where we were as the staff was right in front of us preparing the soups. It was definitely interesting to see but it made a difficult to talk with all of their yelling. It was a fun atmosphere though and made for a lively dinner.

The menu is very easy to understand, they direct you step-by-step how to place an order and I went with the Regular Original Pork Broth with Thick Noodles and Pork Shoulder. We watched all the orders being made and it was fun being on the front line for that to see their process. I was a bit surprised on how fatty the broth was when I first got it, especially for a regular. Nonetheless, the broth tasted good, pretty rich. The pork shoulder was delicious, such amazing flavour with each bite! The egg was also cooked perfectly, still a bit runny on the inside. The noodles were also amazing, excellent quality and fresh. I can see why Kinton has built up such a good establishment, they really use the finest of ingredients.

Food: 4/5 - Excellent ingredients, only complaint is the fattiness of the broth.
Decor: 3.5/5 - Very clean and simple with wooden decor.
Service: 4/5 - Quick in turning customers over, fast to get the ramen.

Willingness to go back: 2.5/5 - Lots of options to try, would try to go to another location.
Overall: 3.5/5

Website: http://www.kintonramen.com/

Cafe Mirage

Date Visited: Brunch on Sunday Sunday Sept 14, 2014
Company: Walk-in for 5

The morning after +Clare's housewarming in North York, we all went for brunch in Sheppard Centre at a place she's been wanting to check out for a while. The Cafe Mirage is primarily known for their desserts from what she knew and also from what I pulled up from the internet. We were pretty excited for bunch as it looked very legit from what we could tell... What a surprise we had...

When we arrived the restaurant was basically empty, I surprised how big the location is with an entrance from Yonge Street as well as the Sheppard Centre. Their menu is quite extensive with a bit of a Mediterranean focus with their main dishes. There was lots of choose from and look at with their book of a menu and we took a while to decide what drinks/breakfasts to get. I finally decided on my classic Back Bacon Breakfast and Vanilla Milkshake.

So for some reason, half the drinks came in one batch then the server had to go back to make the rest of the drinks. She later told us that their drinks person was late that day but there was a lot of people around in the back that could have helped? The Milkshake was actually very delicious though, very thick and good amount of ice cream :). Maybe the desserts/drinks is what they should stick with because our meals were not good at all. Our plates were huge and I got 2 small, thin, overcooked pieces of back bacon, and some stingy scrambled eggs (they say 3 in the menu but there's NO WAY that was 3 eggs). They could not have plated this breakfast any worse to make it look more empty. The rest of the meals didn't look any better either, the quality was not fresh and everything was overcooked. Also, some of the peanut butter they gave us was already opened and got over the rest of the jams. If I was a waiter there I would be so embarrassed to serve this plate to a customer.

After we had eaten, we were literally sitting for about half an hour before we had to wave a waitress over to clear our plates and get the bill. The service was horrible and it's not like they weren't there, they were just walking by and ignoring you. Needless to say, I did not tip very well and was glad to get out of there. I'm very intrigued by their desserts though, how can they look so good while my breakfast was so bad?

Food: .5/5 - AWFUL BREAKFAST, milkshake was only redeeming part.
Decor: 3/5 - Very spacious and modern black and silver decor.
Service: .5/5 - Again, SO BAD. (not the worst I've had though)
Willingness to return: 1/5 - No way I'd come here willingly unless someone dragged me out for dessert... which I'm very actually interested in checking out.
Overall: 1/5 

Website: http://cafe-mirage.com/