When I was going through my brunch phase, The Drake Hotel was recommended to me on more than one occasion. However, it’s location in West Queen West made it a little inconvenient by subway, so I never made it there. This Sunday, when my friends asked me to meet them for brunch at a place of my choosing, The Drake Hotel immediately came to mind.
Low-back pale-green couches line the edge of the window, wrapping around on either side like fallopian tubes. A large painting of jungle animals hang on one wall. The rest of the space is dominated by a bar, high tables and chairs, and distractingly large post-modern chandeliers. The place is as hip as its West Queen West locale, although the clientele varies from tourists to Queen West hipsters to old couples.
Service was attentive, although the food took a little longer to arrive than you would expect for brunch.
The Drake breakfast was a rather boring choice, I’ll admit, but the menu description made it sound more varied than it was. “Hash browns” turned out to be chunks of potato stir-fried with onions and a slice of red pepper. “Fruit” turned out to be a single slice of grapefruit. The whole wheat toast turned out to be a five-grain, with a variety of seeds and had a subtle bitter aftertaste. These little details made me feel very mislead by the menu description. It didn’t help that the scrambled egg-white was under-scrambled, and the fried bacon was over-fried.
The breakfast burrito was a bigger hit with my companion, although the cilantro salsa (again, in the menu, it just said “salsa”) made me immediately grimace – I hate cilantro.
After we’d paid our bill, we saw this lovely little plate delivered to a neighbouring table. We inquired with our server, and my suspicions were confirmed, blueberry scones. In the menu, this was simply the “scone plate – perfect for sharing.” It made me wonder, for the third time, why the menu was so under-descriptive. Did they think these details wouldn’t matter to the average customer? I may not be exactly average, but it makes a big difference to me whether they are blueberry scones or plain butter scones or cranberry scones (the latter two I would not find appetizing at all).
The blueberry scone plate, it turned out, was fantastic, and considerably improved my opinion of the place. It made me almost forgive forget their lack of skill in menu-writing. The scones were light, flaky on the outside, crumbly on the inside, slightly sweet – the best I’ve ever had. The sides – raspberry jam, heavy whipped cream (home-made), and melted butter – were equally delicious. I usually skip whipped cream because 1) I’m lactose intolerant, and 2) stuff that comes in a pressurized container never seems appetizing to me, but home-made whipped cream is a whole other story.
Of course, how could I leave without checking out their sex-on-the-wall bathrooms? The bathroom walls within the stalls are plastered with vintage pornography, which kind of surprised me given this is still within a hotel. But it is West Queen West, after all.
Rating: 