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| - I visited Vendome the other day for lunch. I love the location close to the Sunnyside C-Train station, and the building itself has great memories for me (cinnamon buns from Heartland Cafe were my second-year university hangover cure!). Now, it's a little bit more upscale, and managed by the folks who also bring us Teatro, a downtown restaurant.
When I entered there were three people ahead of me in line. It took them quite a while to make up their mind ("What do you mean I can't get a half order of French toast?") and pay. That gave me lots of time to check out the menu and decide on the marinated beet salad. It advertised red and golden beets, Fairwinds Farm goat cheese, and "artisan greens" or something. I placed my order and asked for a slice of focaccia as well. The girl looked a bit confused and said, "Do you want a side of toast?" I don't usually think of focaccia as being toast, so I just said, "Whatever it takes to get a piece of focaccia with my salad." She confirmed that it would be a side of toast. As a drink I had some of their homemade lemonade (there's a strange price and size differential between to stay and to go lemonades, though in retrospect I think the extra four ounces for twenty cents actually gets you four extra ounces of ice). I got my lemonade and my number, and took a seat. As it was often hard to get seated at Heartland Cafe, I was pleased to see Vendome had additional seating.
So I sat, and I sat. For more than fifteen minutes, actually. I don't know what they were doing in the kitchen- growing the beets from seed? Other people who came after me were served before me, and the clock ticked on. Luckily I was not in a hurry, but I don't think twenty minutes is a reasonable amount of time to wait for a salad and side of toast in a not-busy cafe. When my salad came it looked good, although a bit small, and I was glad I had ordered the "toast" too. The salad had small pieces of beets, a few slivers of raw zucchini, pieces of carrot, two or three pieces of cherry tomato, a little bit of goat cheese and some "artisan greens" (is it official that "artisan greens" = "Earthbound Farms Spring Mix"?). It was good, but not big enough to be filling. The focaccia was unusually thin, and the toasting had dried it out. I lived in Italy for several years and I'm not sure this would have passed any Italian's "focaccia test". It came with a little pot of something... considering it was served with a savoury salad I'd hoped it was tomato chutney or something, but it was actually berry jam. Good for breakfast, not really appropriate with my lunch.
Overall the meal was passable, but not memorable. I would return again and give something else on the menu a try, but it won't be a top lunch stop for me.
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