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| - My friends and I wanted to fall in love with this new restaurant, but I'm not sure we left even In Like :( We feel like we paid a premium for little better than cafeteria-grade food. All fillers, no killers.
We were 4 Chinese-y Jamaican-y people and ordered almost everything off the menu to try except for the pasta and fried cauliflower.
First things first, the most egregious oversight was the watery rum cocktail (!) How can a Jamaica-related place get something that important that wrong? When we asked the server what kind of rum was available, she only knew to say, "Bacardi?" When we let the staff know, there was talk of "concern", but our next cocktail was also watery. For $9 -$10 a drink, if anyone has ever had the Who-Shot-Ya elsewhere, you will leave El Sober.
The fusion names of the food were often more interesting than the food itself. Didn't live up to its swag. It was more dry than it was tasty (the little patties that looked like sliders); fried chicken with watermelon pickles sounded exotic until it was conventional and watery. Things were too small to be satisfied with for one person let alone to be shared (even with multiple orders). Tiny portion of ackee and the skimpiest salad, ever. The charcoal grilled burger on the pineapple bun with Taro root home fries, albeit small, was the one yummy thang.
At one point the chef (owner?) came out to deliver the food and asked what stood out --after finding out that we had ordered everything. Not one of us, could think of what to say :/ (gulp!) We wish we could have.
Toronto has some amazing restaurants that have cropped up in these last years. If Patois hopes to get our night-out dollabills, they really need to step it up. Did they even do market research on how amazing the food is around Toronto??
Groovin' music, tho. Needs more knowledgeable staff and stiffer drinks. Things could have / should have been stellar. We might be back under a different food and drink menu. But probably not.
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