We just paid FIVE DOLLARS per person for TAP WATER at Toca in the Toronto Ritz Carlton Hotel!
Thank you TOCA for charging my table FIVE DOLLARS per person for tap water at your attractive--yet flavorless--restaurant.
Our initial male waiter: "Would you like still or sparkling water?"
Me: "Regular water will be fine."
Well...on the planet that I inhabit, "regular water will be just fine" has always meant tap water. Based on other reviews of TOCA, I'm not their first victim of this trick. That's a big F-You from Toca as far as I'm concerned.
The food:
Fried Halibut appetizer: no flavor whatsoever...a recurring trend for the evening.
Foie Gras appetizer...mediocre at best. The three drops of accompanying reduction would be more suited for a microscope slide rather than something to actually taste.
The cod was fine, but also as bland as can be. I'm not a big salt person but clearly the kitchen has banned salt. The Lobster emulsion that was added to the dish did nothing to perk it up...sad.
The only highlight of the evening was our waitress who was also the in-house artist. She painted the chargers and they were exeptional. Had the dinner not have been SO disappointing we would have ordered a set...the plates were that good.
Obviously, our original con-artist waiter made a HUGE mistake by "misinterpreting" my water order (this has never happened to me in over 35 countries), but the food at TOCA was also a huge disappointment.