Caren's Yorkville used to be one of my favourite brunch and wine bars in the city. It's a shame they had to close.
I visited Caren's Rosedale the other day and the service was friendly and quick. The sangria was delicious as always, and the brunch and cheese were tasty.
My only problem was we often had to ask for things. For example, we got the mascarpone french toast, and it didn't come with mascarpone. We had to awkwardly ask for it and he said "Oh is there not any on it?" well.... we wouldn't ask if there was.
Then, when we got the cheese, it came with grapes. My friend is allergic to grapes, so we asked for something else. My friend asked for apples. The server responded with "apples AND strawberries???" And we were like umm okay. A little odd, but we ignored it. We had also asked for walnuts and honey, but we never received it.
The bill came and not only did the apples and strawberries cost extra, it was absurdly priced. $3 for a few slices of apples and $5 for less than a handful of strawberries? Super odd. Funny how our waiter heard "strawberries" which nobody asked for, but didn't give us the walnuts and honey that we DID ask for.
We still tipped generously because we like the establishment, but this weird technique of up-selling on fruit was off putting.