After reading a review in Post City Magazine that Rose and Sons was the best deli in Toronto, I had to find out for myself. I had pictured a mid size trendy restaurant on Dupont with a line up to get in.
When I saw the place my friends and I looked at each other and thought maybe this was a mistake. But since we drove down from Thornhill and North York we decided to give it a try. The place is old - when I say old, I mean really really old! It's in the old People's Restaurant. The kitchen and bathroom were really awful and the restaurant itself had 4 old booth style seats. We were the only ones there at 6:30 on a Saturday evening for dinner.
We ordered the chicken matzo ball soup which arrived luke warm. The matzo ball was bland but the soup tasted like home made chicken soup. Then came the pastrami knish which was like no knish I'd ever eaten. It was a deep fried crunchy wonton shell with a mush filling of (I think) pastrami and potato? I'm not sure. Very odd knish. Then the meals came. We ordered pastrami sandwiches which came with a piece of an old dill and fries on the side which we paid extra for. The pastrami was delicious. Would I say it's the best pastrami I have eaten. No. Centre Street Deli and Pancers win out over Rose and Sons. I would give it 3rd place though. Fries were nothing special. I wanted to add salt but the salt was as old as the restaurant and was stuck in the shaker. I banged it on the wooden table to loosen it up, but nothing was going to budge it. The one thing I did not appreciate was that the mustard came already on the sandwich. I don't care for regular mustard, I prefer a bold and spicy, slightly sweeter mustard which they had, but the mustard was already on the bread?
The service was great, the waitress was attentive and answered all our questions with a smile. I think she could tell we were not thrilled with the ambiance. The bill was average for a deli meal.
I'm going to stick to my uptown delis for now on. Centre Street, Pancers, Yitz's, Wolfies all much better than this deli. The person who reviewed it must never have had a Jewish bubbie cook for him/her.