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| - Well, first of all, you'd never know this is the same Moose space. Gone are the drab dark surroundings, and in are eclectic and Canadiana aesthetic. There are hockey skates, bowling balls, boxing gloves- tons of items I have little experience with myself, but I can appreciate their appropriateness here. There are long communal tables, mismatched chairs, exposed piping on the ceiling, and bare-filament light fixtures. Obviously, there are an abundance of flat screen televisions lining the walls, but they're not as intrusive as I'm seen in other sports-bar destinations. Here, it seemed to me that most groups in the room were simultaneously engaged in conversation, eating, and drinking, while keeping an eye on the score. The vibe is casual, young and buzzing with energy - especially on that Saturday night when the Leafs were playing the Habs. There's no way around the noise level on a game night- partially from the volume of people, partially from the game on the screen, and largely from the cheering (or booing) when someone gets a score. I did have to strain myself just a bit to chat with my sister, but undoubtedly, no one goes to a sports bar expecting a quiet and private night out. Here, I actually liked that my neighbour struck up a friendly Habs- related conversation with my sister, and that we both joked about our failure to make a dent on our fried potato "loaf". I liked the sense of friendly competition amongst the room when either team scored a goal. So even though I'm admittedly not "into" the whole sports scene going on around me, I can appreciate the vibe for what it is and for those who are (aka. Everyone else in the room).
Well, despite the massive turn out that night, service at LM was friendly and attentive. The meal moved at an enjoyable pace without long lapses between dishes (we received our "appetizers" separately from our "share plates" as requested) and without any obvious pressure from our server to turn the table at the end of our meal. Our server also removed one of the cocktails from the bill that we really did not enjoy without a prompt, which I definitely appreciated from a customer service perspective.
Speaking of cocktails, one of the main revisions with the LM overhaul was enhancing and improving the booze offerings. For beer drinkers (which is clearly their demographic here), there's 27 bottles and 54 draught beer options to choose from- the largest beer draught selection in the downtown core! Go for your tried and true Canadian or Coors, or try one of the unique craft varieties like Sawdust City Gateway Kolsch (try saying that 10 times fast) and Lake of Bays Crosswind Pale Ale. And with all of those exciting choices, it's easily to be undecisive, but that's exactly the purpose of LM's 3-oz sampler pours ($1.11-1.33). For those of us (um, me) who are not so enthusiastic on the beer front, there is also a small list of VQA & International wine (4 red, 4 white), 7 cocktails (including a few with beer), and 3 different varieties of Caesars. Caesars are my go-to drink, so obviously I was going there first. Over the course of the night we sampled:
The Caesar & The Snapper (Clamato, Spices, Extreme Bean with Vodka and Gin, respectively, $7.50)
Randypandyshandy (Leifmans Fruit Beer, Gordans Gin, Lime, Simple Syrup, $8)
Big Booty (Buffalo Trace Bourbon, Lychee, Passion Fruit, Vanilla Sugar, Ginger Beer, $12)
Stormy Weather (Rum, Pineapple, Orange, Granadine, Sirop D'Orgeat, Bitters, $9)
Beaus Pale Ale ($6.42 for a Pint)
Black Oak Nut Brown Ale ($1.11 for 3 oz)
The Caesar and Snapper were standard Caesars 101- no bacon rim or smoke infused vodka or fancy pants garnish. But I don't necessarily need bells and whistles when they're pretty much exactly how I like them. I would definitely return for Caesars on Sundays when they're only $3 each! In contrast, the Randy et al., as I will call it, and the Stormy Weather, were definitely not our style. The former tasted a bit like a sweet candy had melted in light beer, and the latter, while certainly better, was still a little too sweet and flat. Thankfully, we both loved the Big Booty (we each got one) as it had a nice balance of sweet, sour, and a little peppery on the tongue from the ginger beer. I didn't even taste the beers myself, but my sister seemed to enjoy them.
While the old-LM was always a decent place for beer, their previous food offerings read more like a food "program" (aka. sustenance to soak up the booze required to get through a typical Jays game) than what Matt "Rosie" Rosen (Four, Reds) is offering today. With dish descriptions spanning Asia (Pork Belly & Ginger Slaw), Mexico (Tacos & Quesadillas), American (Fried Chicken), Italian (Meatball & Basil Bocconcini), and of course, Canada (Bacon and Bison Meatloaf), it's clearly an international spread....
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