Portico

Date Visited: Dinner on Friday Jun 19, 2015
Company: +Will

Will and I decided to go for a nicer dinner to catch up after a few crazy weeks. We've passed by Portico which is attached to the Cambridge Suites Hotel many times but have never eaten there. I was looking for places in the area and decided to make a reservation to check it out. It was not busy at all around 7PM on a Friday as I think we were the first ones there for dinner. The decor is very classy and has an atmosphere for finer dining, very fitting for the hotel scene. Their water is infused with various fruits which was pretty cool and different from the classic lemon water.

Their menu was pretty limited with only a few options and all on the pricier side. Once we ordered, we got some buns to start. We got about 3 which was an odd number, and all of them were different. Nothing to special about the bread, but they had two types of butter which were really good.

For my main, I had the Seafood Riscotto with Sautéed Tiger Shrimp, Sea Scallops, Sweet Pepper, Leek, Roast Tomatoes, and Garlic Lobster Butter. The plate was huge but the portion was smaller than I expected. I didn't love this dish, the riscotto was plain with just a tomato sauce and it could have been cooked more thoroughly. There were only 2 scallops which were overcooked which made them hard on the sides. The shrimp was really good and large but the flavour wasn't quite there overall.

Will ordered Portico’s Famous Pad-Thai, I had a bite or two but I could hardly find any noodles in there, lots of veggies! But the flavour seemed on point and Will enjoyed it.

By the time we were done, a few more people where there, mostly from the hotel as they seemed to be on business trips by themselves. The enjoyed the setting as it was very quiet and the waitresses were very attentive. Surprisingly good service!

Food: 2.5/5 - Not my favourite and a bit pricey
Decor: 3/5 - Super fancy and clean but a but too much so...
Service: 4/5 - Great!
Willingness to go back: 1/5 - Definitely wouldn't go out of my way to return, much better restaurants in the area.
Overall: 2.5/5

Website: http://www.porticorestaurant.ca/

Cali Eats: Old Fisherman's Grotto

Date Visited: Lunch on Tuesday April 15, 2014

Company: Walk-in for 5

One of the most recommended stops people told me about for the drive along Hwy 1 in California was Monterey Bay. It's a small coastal city with tons of boats docked and a very popular pier, Fisherman's Warf. We parked by the Warf and decided to take a walk around and check out the views before grabbing lunch there. The day we went was pretty cloudy and a bit colder but there was still tons of people there. All the restaurants had displays of their seafood dishes outside and were giving out samples of clam chowder and yelling about their specials to compete with the other restaurants for patrons. It was kind of cool to get the first sample but literally every restaurant afterwards also had a sample, it was a bit unbelievable. Eventually we just picked a place to go into which happened to be Old Fisherman's Grotto which was a bit more of a up-scale place and even had a sign that no crying children were allowed.

There were tons of fresh seafood options, pastas, and meats alike. I ended up choosing one from the Daily Specials menu which had many variations of all their seafoods. I ordered the Seafood Combo because it had a variety of seafoods, and consisted of 1/2 Lobster Tail, Grilled Prawns, Glazed Salmon, Sweet Corn Risotto, and vegetables. While we waited, we got 2 types of bread to start one white and another sourdough.

The restaurant is very large with multiple rooms. We were seated in the one downstairs with a beautiful view over the Pacific ocean. The decor is very classy and chic, even upon entering you can tell it is a fancier restaurant compared to others on the pier. When our dishes came I thought the portion size was a bit small but expected I guess from this type of finer dining restaurant, beautiful presentation though. 

I wasn't blown away from my meal but it was definitely good still. It was the first time I had Risotto and I really enjoyed the texture and flavour of it. It was like mushy, creamy rice and full of flavour.  I thought that the Lobster tail was a bit hard and over-cooked, it was still easy to chew but grilled a bit too much. The Prawns were quite large and good. The Salmon filet was pretty small and I didn't think it was very fresh. There was a sweet sauce drizzled on half my plate which was extremely delicious paired with the salmon and vegetables.

Food: 2.5/5 - Overall not a bad plate but a few misses for the price I paid.

Decor: 3.5/5 - Beautiful view and classy decor.

Service: 3/5 - Very professional and decent wait time.

Willingness to go back: 1.5/5 - Would probably check out some other place on the pier unless we were looking for a fancy place to go to.

Overall: 2.5/5

Website: http://www.oldfishermansgrotto.com/ 

Big Daddy's Bourbon Street Bistro & Oyster Bar

Date Visited: Dinner on Saturday Feb 8, 2014
Company: Reservation for 4

I wasn't very active in looking for restaurants for Winterlicious this year, I got lazy and hoped other people would choose places to go. Big Daddy's was on a list of suggested places to go with my high school friends but we didn't end up choosing it. I checked out the menu though and thought that it would be a good place to check out with +Will as I was hoping we could go to at least one Winterlicious meal together. We booked it for a Saturday dinner before a Birthday/House warming and +Stuart and +Laura joined us last minute also. 
Big Daddy's is a New Orleans inspired restaurant and oyster bar. When I saw where it was on King Street, I realized that I had passed by it many times and wanted to try their much advertised oysters! The restaurant is really large and had tons of seating and decor, everything was accented with bright, bold colours, trying to bring out the lively, Southern atmosphere. Our waiter also let us know that Big Daddy's always has a prix fixe menu at $26 or $31 (depending on the main course) in case we wanted something different from the $25 Winterlicious menu.

We took a while to decide all our orders as they were many options to choose from, especially from their prix fixe menu. But we started with drinks and I ordered a Caesar which was pretty cool because they let you dress it yourself. It came with two types of tabasco sauce in a rack and the Caesar itself had a toothpick with a shrimp and olive on it. I really don't know how much hot sauce bar tenders usually put in Caesars so I did go a little bit overboard and had a rough time with finishing the drink.

Eventually we had all decided and the waiter took our orders, he was very accommodating for mixing some of the Prix Fixe and Winterlicious menu. I decided to go with the $26 Prix Fixe as they had everything on the Winterlicious menu and more to choose from. We were then asked us if we wanted some bread to start, we stupidly said yes even though we had a huge meal ahead of us. 

For my appetizer, I had a tough time choosing from the many Creole options but I decided on the Seafood Gumbo. I didn't really know what to expect for most of these dishes, I had heard of them before but never tried them myself. The Gumbo was a dark, thick stew with a lot of rice and meat. I didn't find very much seafood in this, mostly small shrimps but it didn't have much of a seafood flavour either. The flavour was very rich and the temperature was perfect. It was a very hearty and filling appetizer though, I probably wouldn't recommend it to start a 3 course meal.

For my main course, I had to go for the Jambalaya which wasn't on the Winterlicious menu (only lunch). The Gumbo and Jambalaya actually have very similar ingredients and flavours in the dishes, so if you wanted some variety, I would definitely not recommend getting both of these. At this point, I was thinking I should have started with a salad as I was already kind of full. You have the option of having the Jambalaya with Rice or Fettuccine and I opted for the Creole-style rice. The ingredients were amazing for this one, the chicken, Chorizo sausage, and shrimps were huge. It was very aromatic and had a rich flavours, more so than the gumbo. It was very delicious but unfortunately I wasn't able to finish it as my stomach was about to explode and we had to go and drink afterwards! I was very sad to leave this dish behind.

For dessert, I went for the Apple Crumble with Vanilla Ice Cream from the Winterlicious menu. They gave us good portion sizes but I found the apples very sour and the crumble part wasn't very good either. Pretty disappointing since it's one of my favourite desserts. 

Food: 2/5 - Gumbo was amazing and the portions for everything were huge! Everything else was mediocre.
Decor: 3.5/5 - Bright and vibrant atmosphere, fun place for large groups.  
Service: 3/5 - Our waiter was pretty good and wait time was decent.
Willingness to go back: 3.5/5 - Just because I know the location well and that they always have a prix fixe menu, might be good place to take friends to try their many Louisianan dishes (and osyters!). 
Overall: 3/5
Website: http://www.bigdaddys.ca/

Vagabondo

Date Visited: Dinner on Friday Feb 14, 2014
Company: Valentine's Day Dinner with +Will

Last year, I was looking for restaurants to go to for Valentine's Day and Vagabondo's $55, 4-course, fixed-price dinner really caught my eye. This year, I linked +Will two different restaurants' menus to choose from and he picked Vagabondo's, forgetting that we went there last year. I was happy to go again though because I had a great experience the first time around and now, I had an opportunity to blog about it! I made a reservation on OpenTable, a great site to make reservations and earn points for dining for many restaurants in Toronto and other cities!

Vagabondo is in a bit of a odd location, not really on the street but in a square. It's pretty noticeable though if you know where you're going as there's a large sign outside. The interior was decorated well for the occasion with tons of red and white balloons. We were immediately greeted and taken to our table. The restaurant is large with many different rooms, and we were placed in a small one with about 5 other tables. The placements of these tables were pretty close to each other so I felt a bit squished especially because we were also right against the wall. A waitress gave me a balloon upon entering and I tied it on my chair but I was worried it would keep hitting the guy behind me (that's how close we were to each other) so I stuffed it under the table instead. Anyways, we ordered Spearheads to drink which is one of their beers offered on tap which was described to us as a Toronto local brown ale. 

Once we placed our food orders, we were immediately brought some warm bread with olive oil, balsamic vinaigrette, and butter to start. I loved that they gave the oil and vinaigrette in their bottles (which fit perfectly together, so cute) for us to pour on our plates ourselves for dipping. The bread was great, so soft on the inside, it felt like it was just baked. Shortly after, our first course arrived, the Bruschetta Feta! I remembered when I had this last year, that it was literally the best Bruschetta I'd ever had before. I'm happy to say that it still is. The perfectly toasted baguette was loaded with tomatoes and feta. They were very generous with the toppings and literally pack it on! The tomatoes are so flavourful and lightly brushed with olive oil. The bread doesn't crumble and the toppings don't fall everywhere when you bite into it which is a nice change from previous bruschetta experiences I've had.

For my second course, I choose the Gamberi Coco, tiger shrimp dipped in coconut batter served with honey garlic sauce. The plate came with two large deep fried tiger shrimp on a bed of arugula and the sauce on the side. The shrimp was very hot and pretty large. I loved the coconut flavour with this dish, not something I've had before. The honey garlic sauce was also delicious, an interesting but tasty combination! I would never think to pair those together but it made for a nice appetizer.

There were many good choices for the main dish but I had to go with the Fettuccine Pescatore, pasta with fresh mussels, clams, king crab, tiger shrimp, jumbo scallops and calamari cooked in a tomato basil sauce. The dish was huge when I saw it with large clams topping it off and an empty accompanying bowl for the shells. The pasta was excellent, it was hand-made and the texture was a bit on the hard side which I enjoyed. There were so many mussels, calamari, shrimp, and clams in the pasta, the thick tomato sauce was complemented well with the seafood. There was only one jumbo scallop in my dish and it was awful, it was so hard I couldn't even eat it after one bite. The king crab was also disappointing since there were only about 3 small sections cut of it, so very little meat. No complaints about the rest of the seafood though, they were great. I left just under half of it to take home because there was no way I could finish it and still have room for dessert. I also had a bite of Will's medium-rare filet and it was very tender, I enjoyed it a lot.

Finally, our meal was finally ending with the Chocolate Lava Cake. It was a cute sized little cake packed with chocolatey goodness. There was the sauce coming out from the top and nothing really came out when you broke into it. Will said that you really had to get to the middle for it to come out. It was great though, the perfect end to the meal. I only had less than a quarter of it and asked for it to be packed up but unfortunately the waitress had dropped my lava cake! She was very sweet and said they can make another one but I really didn't need to take it home so I said no. 

Overall, I had a wonderful romantic meal at Vagabondo. I must say that the waitress was extremely attentive the whole night and always made sure we had enough water and asked us how we were doing. It was a bit much at times but definitely no complaints about service or wait times for food. The $55 fixed price dinner was definitely worth it, great value for delicious food as I know their menu is normally quite pricey.


Food: 4/5 - Overall great food here, they know how to do the simple things right!
Decor: 3/5 - Nice place but a little too packed, expected for Valentine's day though.
Service: 4/5 - Would be perfect service, minus the dropping of cake and asked us how we were a bit excessively.
Willingness to go back: 3/5 - Love their Valentine's menu options, wouldn't say no to coming again but wouldn't initiate it either.
Overall: 3.5/5
Website: http://www.vagabondo.ca/

HUSH Restaurant, Patio & Bar

Date Visited: Dinner on Tuesday Jan 21, 2014
Company: Reservation for 5 ladies before seeing Les Miserables

There was a group of us going to see Les Miserables at Princess of Wales Theatre on Tuesday night and I wanted to find a place to have a quick dinner beforehand. There are a ton of restaurants in the area of all different types of cuisines. HUSH was a reasonably-priced, American restaurant that I've heard of through the -licious' events that seemed like the perfect place to go for a casual dinner. 

I made a reservation for 6PM and hoped that I could make it down from Oshawa in time after work, which we did... (that's if we didn't have a few wrong turns downtown). We parked at the Princess of Wales underground parking which was across the street and a few restaurants down from HUSH. Our table was right near the window and gave us a view of the lively King Street West. The lighting was very dim but the decor was very classy and urban which livened up the place. We had two different servers oddly, which was mentioned to us by the first one. It appeared that one took care of us in the beginning and then they switched but the first one was still around in the area (maybe they share the area?). 
There were a lot good choices on the menu and it was hard to decide! Their sandwiches and burgers all seemed delicious but I decided to go for the Seafood Linguine consisting of shrimp, lobster, baby spinach, grape tomatoes, fresh herbs, sun dried tomato pesto, broccoli & roasted garlic aioli, a classic choice for me. Our orders came surprisingly fast after they were placed, great for us because our show was at 7:30PM. Everyone's food looked amazing, we all got different things and the presentation for all of them looked spectacular. The Linguine had huge pieces of shrimp and lobster sticking out and lots of veggies mixed in the sauce. The sauce was very thick, almost like chowder, but I thought the flavour was great. I really enjoyed the tomato-y addition with the pesto, definitely different from other Seafood Linguine I've had. I also tasted some other veggies in the mix, like zucchini but all of the flavours blended together nicely. The pieces of toast were awesome for dipping in the excess sauce. The pasta also was cooked perfectly. 

As we were having our meals, we noticed someone else ordering a dessert that looked like fondue. We checked the dessert menu and found out they have S'mores, to share between 2-5. We had about half an hour before our show and asked our waiter if they would take more than 15 minutes to prepare and eat and he said no (of course), so we got them! He wasn't lying because he came out right away with them! They were such a cute idea. The waiter light the burner and the flames immediately shot up a brilliant blue. We each got our own poking stick with Marshmallows, Graham crackers, Caramel sauce, and Lindt Chocolate to share. We had a lot of fun cooking/burning our marshmallows and creating S'mores. My sweet tooth had its fill for a while after that though. I wasn't impressed that they didn't fill our water once or really check on us throughout the dinner. All our waters were empty and I wanted a drink after the dessert. 

We got our bills though and I mentioned in the reservation that we needed separate bills which they accommodated and even split up the dessert evenly for us. :)

Food: 3.5/5 - Really enjoyed everything! Their dishes offer a lot of variety and creativity with quality ingredients.
Decor: 2.5/5 - Very typical King St W decor... dim and chic at night, I'd like to see it in the day and apparently there's a patio in the summer!
Service: 2/5 - Not the best service but the food came very timely.
Willingness to go back: 4/5 - Definitely! So many things to try there, great reasonably priced spot in the area.
Overall: 3/5
Website: http://www.hushrestaurants.ca/

Tangerine Asian Cuisine

Date Visited: Dinner on Friday Jan 3, 2014

Company: Early CNY dinner with +Stanley, +Kelvin, and company

Tangerine was recommended to me by my Tamil friend who said it was an awesome Hakka restaurant in the Whitby/Oshawa area. For those who don't know, Hakka is a style of cuisine from China that the Hakka people cook. They have traditional dishes but they're popular for their Indian style Hakka food which combines Chinese dishes with Indian spices. My dad is Hakka so I've had my share of the traditional dishes but don't get to try the Indian style ones very much unless we go to a restaurant. Some Asian friends of mine were going to be in town/convinced to come and wanted to go for some Chinese so I thought it was a great opportunity to try it. I actually don't know any good primarily Chinese restaurants near me so I really had high hopes for this place!

+Stanley and I arrived first and got a table for five. It was pretty full and we just waited a few minutes as they cleared a table for us. The restaurant is about small-medium sized with a hall upon entering that spans the length of the dining area taking you to to the waiters in the back with a small waiting area there. There weren't any Asian customers but I guess that isn't very surprising as it is in the Durham Region. As we waited, we checked out the menu and saw that a pot of Chinese Tea was $2, which usually should be free. +Stanley also wasn't impressed that they didn't have chopsticks on the table, only forks and knives but I expected that. They had a lengthy and wide-range of Asian cuisine from Thai to Indian and dishes were reasonably priced as if they would be in a typical restaurant in Scarborough/Markham.


After everyone arrived, we ordered a soup and four dishes from the waiter that took our order. He also assumed that we wanted White Rice and we weren't sure if he was going to charge us but it was actually free! We started off with a Large Seafood Hot & Sour Soup for the five of us. We served ourselves and waited a bit for the soup to cool down! I was impressed on how much seafood they actually packed in this soup. It included the regular items you would see in hot and sour soup like tofu, bamboo, and wood ear, but also had shrimp, imitation crab, scallops etc. (ie. the seafood part) It was a great addition the soup and added nicely to the flavour. The hot part was spot on but I thought it could have been a bit more sour.


To pick what dishes to order, I actually looked on Foursquare recommendations and literally everyone said to order the Mango Chicken or the Bombay Chicken (both which were also on the Chef Recommendations part of the menu). We of course, got both. The Mango Chicken ended up being my favourite dish of the night and I'm actually still craving for some now. The sauce was sweet and packed with flavour but it wasn't overbearing and thick. The chicken was crispy and the mango was ripe. I couldn't get enough of it! The Bombay Chicken was a dry dish and had a lot of spices added to the chicken. It was also tossed with some onions which were cooked perfectly. This dish had more Indian spices and flavours to it but I didn't find it spicy at all.

We also wanted to order calamari and were debating between the appetizer dish and a main, but we ended up getting the Spicy Deep Fried Calamari main dish. I found this one pretty greasy (deep fried of course) but the calamari itself wasn't bad. I found that certain pieces were saltier than others but the overall flavour with the onions, pepper, and garlic was great. 

Our last dish was a Seafood Hakka Noodle which was in a huge bowl and was the only one we were too full to finish and had to take home. The noodles were cooked nicely though and there was a nice mix of vegetables and seafood in the dish. I thought the flavour was a bit bland and probably could have done without this one.

I was very impressed with Tangerine overall, the food came timely after we ordered and being in a group, our food was pretty cheap after we split everything. It's probably the best you'll get in the Durham Region hands down. Usually you see many small, sketchy take-out Chinese restaurants but this place is actually legitimate and presentable.

Food: 4.5/5 - Delicious flavour, huge portions and reasonably priced.
Decor: 3/5 - Clean but very standard and simple.
Service: 3/5 - Nothing spectacular but servers were attentive.
Willingness to go back: 4.5/5 - Yes, totally taking anyone who wants to go for Chinese in the area there!
Overall: 4/5

Website: http://www.tangerineasiancuisine.com/ 

Remezzo Italian Bistro

Date Visited: Dinner on Wednesday Nov 13, 2013
Company: Walk-in for four

Being in the Scarborough area for work, some friends and I randomly decided to meet up for dinner afterwards as they also happened to be in town that day. After meeting up at STC for some browsing, we drove to Remezzo, an Italian restaurant nearby. It's in a small plaza with a few stores, but right beside a huge Asian grocery. +Will had drove there earlier as he had come straight from work and had a table waiting, not that it was very busy. The place is very spacious with many sections, and most tables seemed to be family gatherings.

They had their specials of the day written at the front but when I asked the waitress what they were, she had a hard time recalling them, not the best waitress. We decided to split Bruschetta to start and I also ordered the French Onion Soup. The wait wasn't too long for our appetizers. The Bruschetta came in 6 pieces which was perfect because only 3 of us ended up sharing it. The bread was nicely tasted and there was ample amount of tomatoes, very simple and delicious. The French Onion Soup also came shortly after and it looked extremely delicious in its little bowl. There was tons of cheese on the top layer and wasn't overcooked, it stayed hot throughout. It was very stringy though and I had a hard time getting down to the crouton part right underneath. Near the end, I also found all of the onion bits together at the bottom of the broth. It was +Stephanie's first time having it but she thought it was too salty. Overall, I think it was a bit messy but a great French Onion Soup.  But I would definitely get it again, it wasn't too expensive and loaded with cheese and onions.

For my main, I wanted to get the Eggplant Parmesan which was a special that day but the waitress forgot to mention that it was all out and had to return to re-take my order. Instead, I ordered the Linguini Di Mare. Our main dishes were brought out right as we were finishing our appetizers. The Linguini had scallops, shrimp, and scallops mixed in with a tomato-basil sauce. There were tons of seafood in the pasta which I enjoyed, you could really taste the flavour as the tomato sauce was pretty light. The shrimps and scallops were very big while the clams were small but there were tons of them in the dish. I took some of it home as I was pretty full from the apps but the portions were a good size as everyone finished their dishes.

Food: 3.5/5 - Mediocre but tasty food at reasonable prices!
Decor: 3/5 - Cozy, family-friendly restaurant with tons of space.
Service: 1/5 - Our waitress was so bad, but the food came quickly.
Willingness to go back: 4/5 - Definitely would go back for some delicious Italian without breaking the bank!
Overall: 3/5
Website: http://www.remezzo.ca/

Pure Spirits Oyster House & Grill

Date Visited: Summerlicious Lunch on Saturday Jul 6, 2013 
Company: Party of 9, SJ reUnion

Summertime is upon us which means for me, reunions over Summerlicious meals! I checked out many of the menu options online and we had decided on Pure Spirits because I wanted to go to a seafood restaurant and they had a nice variety of dishes to satisfy the different tastes in our group. Pure Spirits is also located in the nice Toronto neighbourhood of the Distillery District which I thought would be a nice hang-out location prior or post lunch.

It was an extremely hot Saturday afternoon so we decided to sit on the patio to enjoy the beautiful weather. We had made a reservation for 12 people that apparently they could only do two tables of 6, but our group on the day of was only 9 which they were nicely able to accomodate. Their patio area was huge and I was checking out other people's foods and drinks on the walk to our table. Their drinks all were very pretty and they had a nice selection of Sangrias, Mojitos, and Virgin Cocktails all which were around $10 and $5 for the non-alcoholic drinks. I ordered a Rose Sangria that was $11 and quite pricey IMO but I usually don't order girly drinks like that so that might be their average price. It was very delicious though with pieces of green apple and lemon floating in the drink, but it wasn't as sweet as I was expecting it to be.
For the foods, I decided to go for the seafood dishes to  get the full experience of the oyster bar. Many of the other customers seemed to be having the mussels and it looked like a good portion size. After we placed our full order, we had a nice basket of rolls to enjoy. I've actually had never had Mussels Provencal before and was very excited to try them as I've only had them prepared in Chinese dishes. What I enjoyed about them after having a taste is how flavourful they were and the unique flavour they had. Who would think that the combination of white wine, tomatoes, garlic, and herbs would be so delicious? The broth was quite salty but I assume that is to get the flavour in the mussels because they were fine. The rolls were perfect for dipping the extra broth in, but I couldn't have too much of that either because of the saltiness.

For my entree, I ordered the Haddock and Chips. It was quite the toss-up between that and the Jerk Chicken Sandwich but I think either choice would have been good  because everyone seemed to be satisfied with their food well into the meal. The fish was extremely hot as it probably came straight out of the deep fryer and it didn't help with the beaming sun either which really exposed the oiliness. The haddock was very tender and just a nice looking piece of fish on the plate. The homemade tartar sauce didn't impress me much because it didn't have too much flavour, it was mostly mayo. There wasn't many fries on the plate either but it was a very filling amount overall so I'm glad they didn't try to overload you with it. The dill coleslaw was very refreshing and light, I'm usually impartial to coleslaw but this was a much needed complement to the dish.

To finish, I had the Peanut Butter and Cream Pie which was pretty unique, I've never had anything like it. The pie crust was quite sturdy and you could just eat everything inside without breaking the hard crust at all. It was topped with a rich peanut butter and a custard-like base. There was also a raspberry sauce at the bottom that gave the dessert a nice sour berry flavour. I wasn't really a fan of the peanut butter, I found it too sweet and had to have extra of the other elements to balance it out. It was a cute little dessert and concept but I wasn't the biggest fan. The custard was very good (but I love custard), but everything else was just okay. I found the combination of flavours kind of random and didn't find they went well together.

Food: 3.5/5 - Very satisfying Summerlicious meal :)
Decor: 4/5 - Large patio and cool interior.
Service: 3.5/5 - Waitress was really good to us!
Willingness to come back: 3.5/5 - If i was in the area, I'd definitely try to drop by but it is quite pricey. 
Overall: 3.5/5
Website: http://purespirits.ca/

Buster's Sea Cove

Visited: Late lunch on Saturday June 15, 2013

Company: Take-out with +Will Ives 

On the beautiful Saturday that just passed, +Will and I decided to go biking around the city with Bixi's. In trying to find the station where you pick up these bikes, we stumbled into St. Lawrence Market to take a look around. I spotted people eating lobster rolls outside and remembered that Buster's Sea Cove was here and that I wanted to try it out! So we noted to return after our ride for a mid-afternoon lunch. 

Upon entering St. Lawrence, Buster's line was pretty noticeable among the traffic of people. We were pretty surprised that there even was a line at 3PM, but it was a Saturday in Toronto where people are always about, especially in the nice weather. Luckily, there's server taking orders in line (with a huge east coast accent, mind you) which does speed up the process noticeably as you just go up to pay and wait on the side for your food. The debit machine has a charge of 25 cents though which they don't have signage anywhere about.

Buster's was the first seafood food truck in Toronto and is famous for their lobster rolls and seafood tacos. At this location in St. Lawrence, they have an extensive menu with various fishes and sandwiches but no tacos. Their 'Special of the Day' was the lobster roll so I assume that that's usually the case, since it's their signature food truck order. You have the option of fries and coleslaw or salad for the side. I, of course had to go with Lobster Roll with Fries and Coleslaw for my order which was $15. We got our orders and headed to Will's to enjoy the food outside on the balcony. With food like this, there's just a sense of 'you need to eat this outside' kind of feeling attached to it.

I had seen shows on the Food Network about lobster rolls before and I was always skeptical because they use this small hot dog bug and then they stuff a ridiculous portion of lobster in it... was it for real? I wouldn't say that that they overstuff the roll, but theres a good proportion of lobster to bun, and the meal definitely fills you. The lobster roll it's self was extremely delicious, the bun is toasted on both sides with butter and the filling is just a lovely chilled creation of lobster, celery, and who knows what else. I'm a huge lobster fan and I've never had it in a salad-like form before, it's nice to see lobster in a less-classy way. I'm usually not a fan of coleslaw but theirs was really good, nice and flavourful. The fries are small-cut and had no salt, but there's a station with salt, vinegar, etc for them. The pickle they included though, was the worst pickle I've ever eaten! It was so sour and had no crunch. I was surprised how even though they squished everything together on the plate, the different items didn't combine, the coleslaw didn't make the roll soggy and the fries didn't heat up the lobster to a gross temperature! Nicely executed.

Food: 3.5/5 - Lives up to the popularity.
Decor: 2/5 - Pretty nice nook in the market but definitely squishy
Service: 3/5 - Pretty quick, food-truck style for sure.
Likeliness to come back: 3/5 - If you don't mind the prices, there's a nice variety of seafood to try here! I don't think it's something you crave like sushi though.
Overall: 3/5
Website: http://bustersseacove.ca