rev:text
| - Came here for our last dinner in Toronto. Seemed like the reservations were fairly hard to come by, so I booked it for a Sunday dinner, and the place was about half-empty when we arrived, but still fairly lively. The place has bright pink walls, but you can't really tell when it's dark out, because of the dimly lit space. The intimate vibe makes it quite a good setting for a date, but the space also is a little cramped, so it's a good thing to keep in mind if you want private conversation.
Given that we were pretty hungry and eager to try as much as we could (duh), we ordered the stuffed piquillo peppers, the chicken liver mousse, the dry-aged pork chop, and the burger. The piquillo peppers were like your run-of-the-mill stuffed peppers, and the chorizo inside had a nice flavor. The chicken liver mousse was very delicate and really tasty, especially with the crusty bread and sweet pitted cherries. The burger was really solid, and cooked quite nicely, and the fries were perfect. Not quite the mind-blowing burger I read about, but still very, very good. The dry-aged pork chop was probably my favorite dish, however, and the dry-aged flavor was really intense, and you can really taste the difference from regular pork chops.
The problem was that the service was exceedingly slow-moving, even though it wasn't particularly busy. Not to mention, for a very quaint, cozy restaurant, the hostess and our waitress wasn't very warm or friendly, and thus we weren't offered a reason or apology for the extra wait. Friendliness isn't by any means a requirement when running a restaurant, as long as the service is efficient, but when the service isn't is good, the lack of warmth certainly doesn't help. It was certainly disappointing after reading all the reviews about excellent service at this place.
The Harbord Room does seem like a pretty good place for a casual meal, and the food is pretty well-executed, so I'm inclined to recommend it. It's more like 3.5 stars, but I'll round up because the food was really good. The menu is decently innovative, and I'm sure it's a nice place for a date, but hopefully you get better service than we did.
|