I love the original BarHop outpost. This one has only been open a week, so this is a preliminary review. Surprised how packed it was right off the bat.
The beer list is relatively identical in number of choices and competition to the original location. Lots of Toronto and Ontario beers with a few American/Euro options sprinkled in.
The food was by and large the weak point. The menu here is organized rather strangle. There are some tapas style snacks (read small portions that aren't cheap), a few sandwiches that come without sides, and some large entrees that are meant to be shared.
We shared the Scotch Olives which were a massive fail...like a Scotch egg but an olive. With the incredibly salty olives wrapped in salty sausage and then breaded in a salty coating I surely achieved my recommended daily intake of sodium in one bite. We passed along feedback and couldn't finish them. The sweetbreads were well-fried but a bit bland, and the sauce wasn't quite up to the challenge. The brisket was the best of the night, but still a bit dry...not a beautiful succulent brisket you get in a proper bbq joint.
The rest of the menu has things like a fish that's almost $40 and a steak that was somewhere around the $110 mark. Umm...who's going to buy a steak that costs that much from a place that doesn't specialize in steaks?
Our server was enthusiastic. Food runners are still struggling a lot to get the right food to the right table and pacing is off, e.g. apps came at the exact same time as mains.
In any case, I still vastly prefer the food of the original Barhop, but I'll give this a chance to settle in an update my review.