| rev:text
| - The tl;dr for this huge review is that when my tablemates asked me what I thought of my meal, I told them I'd rather go to Swiss Chalet.
Bright spots: the service was friendly and the potato salad was really good. The space was nice. The onion bread was tasty, although it's a tiny portion and you could make it at home in 10 minutes for about 20% of the price - but I digress.
Maybe I'm not digressing, actually. This place is way overpriced. One tiny loaf of sourdough with the onion butter? Five bucks. Half rack of ribs, $20. Poutine (regular poutine, not the specialty one with brisket and stuff)? $10. A side order (side order!) of mac and cheese will set you back about $8. I know Vaughan is expensive generally and this space is big, but seriously? Absurd.
The menu is ridiculous. Want a sampler platter for one? A couple slices of this and a scoop of that? No. You can pay almost $30 for a three-meat sampler (which, by the way, is 1/3 rack ribs and 6oz/each pulled pork and brisket). Do you want to order a sandwich with one meat and try a bit of something else? Nope. If you ask, they might be able to do this, but I've really never seen a barbecue place that doesn't serve food in this way to begin with. You're clearly supposed to order one of their constructed plates.
The portions are not large. The half rack of ribs was one of the smallest I've ever seen. It was about as much meat as a 1/3-rack portion at Swiss Chalet. I mention SC again because after eating these ribs, my immediate reaction was that it's both more flavorful and a better value than The Smoke. I got the smokin' hot sauce and it tasted almost exactly like the Swiss Chalet rib sauce, but with a weaker flavor and the absolute teensiest bit of spice. It was kind of funny that this is the ""spicier"" sauce, because I'm pretty sure someone just whispered "Tabasco" over the molasses-based sauce before serving and called it hot.
With this dinky portion of ribs, I chose coleslaw and potato salad as my sides. The potato salad was, as I said, really good. Nice creamy dressing, smooth flavor, touch of white wine really works. This was the best thing I ate. The coleslaw was horrible, and I'm not even sure why - it just had this weird, smoky, burnt-caraway-seed tasting edge.
The slaw, however, was not the worst thing I ate. This was a 2-star review until I took a bite of one of my table's appetizers - the meatballs. Holy god, this was one of the worst things I've ever tasted in my life. It was absolutely repulsive. It tasted like they had scraped the bottom of the smoker after preparing their stock for the day and then shaped that into a ball. I went back to eating coleslaw to get the taste out of my mouth.
Despite the ribs, onion bread, and potato salad, I cannot write a review that says "this restaurant served me one of the worst things I've ever tasted, 2/5". I know people like this place, but I clearly don't get it.
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