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| - Decided to check this place out on a Friday night after reading about it in Toronto Life. I brought my dad along since he loves trying out new restaurants and we are all fans of fresh seafood. The five of us arrived at 7pm and realized that we should have planned this better. The restaurant is very small and a table of 8 was reserved for a party that hadn't arrived yet. They didn't have enough tables left for us and we were told it would be 20 minutes or more before a table would be free. I asked him to call my cell phone when a table was ready since there was clearly no space in the restaurant for the 5 of us to wait. Unfortunately, the plaza offered little amusement while we waited 30 minutes. The owner suggested we order in advance to help things along which we did: 1) half pound fried calamari (with fries), 2) half pound BBQ shrimp (with rice), 3) red snapper Singari-style (with rice).
We were finally seated after 7:30pm and were served free pita bread with babaganoush (smoky and delicious) and hummus (just ok). We were given a plate of salad, followed by our orders of calamari, BBQ shrimp and rice shortly after. The fish arrived and eventually... the fries (after I asked). The calamari was very tender with light and crispy batter. The BBQ shrimp was perfectly cooked with fantastic char and deep, smoky flavour. The fish was also incredible, perfectly executed and nicely seasoned. Overall, the food was truly enjoyable and extremely fresh. The seafood was definitely the star of the show, so much that despite a few other issues, I would still give this place 4 stars.
About those issues... Service needs some work unfortunately. The whole seating thing kind of upset me: When we arrived, a table of 4 was being used by two people. The reserved table of 8 ended up being only 5 diners. There was an unoccupied two-top when we arrived which could have been combined with the other spare seats to "spare" us the long wait. When you have two young kids in tow, these kinds of things make a difference. I had to request glasses of water. I had to remind them about my order of fries. The salad was literally swimming in so much vinegar that the waiter spilled it and the server had to mop up the puddle on the floor afterwards. I think we were supposed to get a third dip for our pita bread but we didn't.
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