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| - My wife and I didn't set out to visit this Moxie's location on the night that it opened, but we were walking by after attending a TIFF screening, so we figured we'd give it a shot.
I'm most familiar with Moxie's Highway 7 location, which I've found to be above average. In terms of all the "upscale casual" restaurants, I still like Joey more, but Moxie's is probably my second favourite as it's still light years ahead of most of the Milestones-type places and I like it a bit better than earls.
I would give this restaurant a solid 3 stars. The food will never be phenomenal here, but it was all pretty good. We had the kimchi, Korean BBQ flat bread as an app. The meat and kimchi were very good, but the actual "flat bread" was just white pizza dough. I had the prosciutto pizza as a main, and I liked that a bit more. Nothing mind-blowing, and the portion size was on the small side, but I enjoyed it.
The restaurant itself is nice, with massive stone walls and high ceilings, but it pretty much looks just like a Joey or an earls. The location is pretty great though -- I'm so glad to see more restaurants open along University Avenue, which was a dead zone for so long. With other restaurants on the way, like the Cactus Club Cafe that is going to open at First Canadian Place, the financial district is becoming a mecca for huge lounge-ey chain restaurants. Being on the lower part of University also means that it's deceptively close to the Rogers Centre, and it's always good to find another place to dine and drink before or after watching the Jays or another event.
One complaint is that the only beer they have on tap is their house beer, which isn't bad, but I prefer it when there's a greater selection on tap.
Where this restaurant really shines is the service. Our server was fabulous and talked to us for quite a while.
Because it was the first night, every single staff person asked us if we needed anything, which got to be a bit much, but I do give Moxie's credit for really caring about service. That's one thing that's always stood out when visiting this chain.
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