Three and a half hours and $60 later, I walked out with only two good things to say about the place: the servers are courteous and the washrooms are clean.

We had a reservation for 7:00 pm but were cooling our heels in the lobby until 8:00 pm. Unacceptable.

It took another 40 minutes for our first course to come. Granted, we had a party of 12, but we were all ordering off the Summerlicious menu, so they could expect the volume ahead of time (and everyone knows its pre-made anyway), so how long does it take to arrange appetizers on 12 plates?

Grilled romaine lettuce heart tasted exactly like what you would expect romaine lettuce hearts to taste like. The portobello tasted bizarre, and not in a good way.

Gazpacho is a cold Spanish tomato-based vegetable soup. Given that it was a vegetable soup, I wasn’t ready for the chill. It tasted fine, nothing to write home about. The half-cherry tomato came with goat cheese, which was not on the menu. Kind of a big deal, I’m surprised they didn’t put that on there given how they like to put every single ingredient on the menu. Lobster medallions tasted like they’d been frozen and then thawed, but what did I expect? I don’t know, maybe something fresh from such a “fine-dining” establishment.

I love duck. When I order duck, it’s hard for me not to enjoy it. But last night, I left half my duck breast on the plate. Why? It was undercooked, the meat was hard, not tender at all, and the breast itself was barely marinaded. There was plenty of fat under the skin, if it had cooked longer, I’m sure the meat could have been juicier. After having made my own orange-infused duck breast in Paris, I now knew what to expect and this was definitely below-par.
The duck leg confit lasagna was very creative, and was quite good – the only thing I ended up finishing that night. The lasagna was made with duck meat, spinach, cream cheese, and Parmesan sprinkled on top.

The halibut filet tasted like nothing, perhaps a hint of salt, but really, nothing. Of the four people that ordered this entree, zero enjoyed it.

Well, it’s a bento box. I mean, it looks cute, but really? This is the “vegetarian option” on your Summerlicious menu? If I were vegetarian, I would be downright offended. Here, have a few string beans, beets, and asparagus. The wasabi mashed potato sounded promising, until we realized it tasted no different from regular mashed potato, but green. Yes, that is exactly what this meal needs to look more appetizing! Green mush!

“Lemon-lavender-blueberry dome with chocolate arts, lemon-grass vanilla sauce” sounds like a mouthful, but it was really a small cake with some decoration. We had a laugh over how specific the menu was, even to go so far as to name the three triangular white-chocolate pieces as “chocolate arts.” The lavendar in the cake made it taste rather strange, although not altogether horrible.

I like crepes. I like crepes flambe even more. This crepe, however, was soggy. And tasted strongly like marmalade. No thanks. The cherry jubilee tasted better with the vanilla ice cream, but wasn’t all that inspired.

I did not get a picture of the third dessert option, “warm peach tart and peach ice cream”, which turned out to be the best one. The peach tart was good, it tasted like a fruit tart with less sugar.

After tax and tip, the meal came out to $60 (not including drinks). Considering there wasn’t a single course I was completely happy with, I was utterly disappointed. I’ve always been told Summerlicious meals are sub-par, but this was just a disgrace.

Rating:

Our server did not speak very much English, but we got by with my Spanish. Service was moderately attentive by North American standards, very attentive by Spanish standards. Although the restaurant was nearly empty when we walked in, it started filling up as the meal went on (mostly with tourists, unfortunately).

We started with a pitcher of sangria, which came with large chunks of fruit. The Spanish really know how to make a good sangria. Then the food started coming.

The deep-fried cuttlefish was the best I’ve ever had, with a practically non-existent batter and fresh cuttlefish. Instead of the usual rubbery-ness of fried foods in the squid family, this cuttlefish was surprisingly tender, although still chewy.

Patatas bravas is the Spanish take on home fries. The potatoes were average but the smoked paprika sauce was an interesting twist from ketchup back home.

The sizzling prawns in clay pot were soaked in a butter, garlic, chili concoction, whose fragrant smell filled the room as soon as it was brought out. The prawns were not as big as expected, nor as savoury.

Unfortunately, I don’t remember what these were because I didn’t order them, and the people who did can’t remember ever having it. My guess is that it was tuna fillet. Its lack of memorableness can be attributed to its absolute bland character.

This is a plate of mushrooms. They were fried. They tasted like mushrooms. The end.

This was the fanciest dish that we were presented with, but I was told it was average.

The chickpeas and sausage were supposed to be a staple for the meal, but the sausages ended up ruining the dish. The sausage was house-made cured, but it was so salty that each piece tasted like we were eating salt.

In the end, the only outstanding dish was the fried cuttlefish. I would probably not return to this restaurant if I come back to Barcelona. We should have known better than to pick a restaurant in such a touristy neighbourhood.

Rating:

The restaurant is less than five years old, so the interior was still in good shape. However, they had tried to cram so many people inside that all the aisle space was taken up and chairs were back-to-back. I am pretty sure that’s a fire hazard, but nobody seemed to care.

When we were finally seated, we had to share a table with another family, which is never something we really enjoy. The other family was speaking rapid Cantonese extremely loudly non-stop for the entire meal. I think what they said in minute was more than what the three of us said combined for the entire meal.

The food arrived relatively quickly, and in a sensible order much to my surprise, starting with appetizers, then steamed items, and finally dessert.

The Nanjing Salted Duck was very tender and delicious. The Sweet and Sour Pork Ribs were definitely mainland style, although they were under-cooked, and they didn’t use the best cut of pork ribs.

Ji Cai Fish and Egg Drop Soup was thick and fragrant. It was not too salty, and naturally xian without MSG.

The xiao long bao were very savoury, second only to Ding Tai Fung’s soup-filled dumplings.

I haven’t had sheng jian bao since my summer in Shanghai, but these definitely did not live up to the savoury pan-fried pork buns in my memory. The baos were too big, and the pork filling was not savoury enough.

We don’t usually order fried noodles, but we saw this dish on every table, so we decided to try it. It was very average. It was surprisingly bland, despite the dark colouring.

Green onion pancake was my favourite item, the best I’ve had anywhere in Toronto. It was the perfect thickness, very crispy on the outside, with just enough green onions to savour.

I’ve had these red bean rice cakes before in Ding Tai Fung but these were still warm. They’re supposed to be room-temperature. Because they were hotter than normal, they were extra soft. There was also too much red bean paste inside, and the candy toppings were overpowering.

The food was Shanghai-nese after all, but the clientele certainly wasn’t. We were seated near the door, so throughout our entire meal, there were pushy people waiting right next to us, hovering over our table and practically elbowing us or swinging their purse and smacking us in the head. These people clearly did not know how to keep a respectful distance. One lady sneezed into our food. Another lady kept leaning over our table to get the waiter’s attention. She was there for 10 minutes and the entire time, we weren’t able to eat at all. I was appalled by how pushy they were; they had no sense of propriety despite the angry glares I tried giving them. What was worse, the waiters clearly saw that about 10 people had spilled into the dining area (all crowded around our table, as it happened) and wasn’t asking them to step back and wait in the foyer area. Customer management was non-existent apparently.

So even though we ordered eight dishes, we barely finished and left as quickly as possible. Would you be able to enjoy a meal with five people elbowing you in the head, leaning over your table, and sneezing into your food?

Rating:

Author’s Note: I had to take cameras with my phone, so they came out very low quality. Some photos have been supplemented courtesy of Marz.

As soon as I pulled open the massive wooden door to its entrance, I was greeted with a loud and energetic chorus of irashaimase! from all over the restaurant. I was temporarily shell-shocked and froze in the entrance way, literally too dazed to take another step. Was this a restaurant? Was I still in Toronto? The warm, lively, chaotic scene before me seemed a world away from the wet, cold, windy, and empty street I had just left. I spotted my friends at the bar and quickly joined them.

The restaurant was not very large, but they seemed to have somehow fit a hundred people inside. The commotion of the Japanese chefs behind the bar, along with everyone else in the place, made it so loud I found it difficult to hear myself speak. Every few seconds, the entire staff would shout a chorus of Japanese together, and I would again be shocked into a daze. It took us a long time to order as the shouting made it hard to focus on the menus in front of us. Time here also seemed to go at a faster pace than the outside world. Our server came by four times before we were ready to order – it seemed like we were taking a long time when in reality, we took no more than twenty minutes. When we finished our meal (in a rather timely fashion I would say), we realized we had maxed out our two-hour time limit, but it felt like no time at all.

The food arrived very quickly and in no discernible order. This was a pub after all, whatever was made first was immediately served. The serving sizes are rather small (like tapas) and all menu items are under $10. For the four of us, we ordered six items to share, thinking it would be more than enough. We later ordered a second round and a third round, totaling 11 items.

Tonkatsu, a special that’s not on the menu, arrived first. Deep fried pork tenderloin drizzled with wasabi mayo sauce. As far as tonkatsu goes, this was decent, but tonkatsu is a pretty unexciting dish.

Salmon natto yukke was a dish I had been dying to try. Yukke is actually borrowed from Korean cuisine, which basically means raw seafood with seasoning and a raw egg, meant to be mixed together before eating. The salmon natto yukke was mixed with natto (fermented soybeans), shibazuke (pickled eggplant and cucumber in plum vinegar seasoned with ginger), takuan (pickled daikon), wonton chips, diced garlic “chips”, chopped scallions, and raw egg. Wrapped in crisp nori sheets, the mixture was a delicious juxtaposition of sweet and savoury, soft and crispy. The marinade was very aromatic, reminded me of cooking wine. The salmon chunks were fresh, and every ingredient was authentically Japanese. What a treat!

I find it interesting that this was called “hotate carpaccio” when there was a Japanese word readily available: hotate sashimi. Scallop sashimi swam in a creamy wasabi mayo dressing. The scallops were the freshest I had ever tasted. The localvore in me cringed at the thought of shipping these scallops from across the Pacific, but damn, it really was like no scallop I’d ever tasted on this side of the ocean.

The fried Japanese pancakes were not nearly as good as I imagined. The batter of okonomiyaki is supposed to be made of flour, grated yam, water or dashi, eggs and shredded cabbage, and other ingredients such as green onion, meat (generally pork or bacon), octopus, squid, shrimp, vegetables, kimchi, mochi or cheese². What I tasted was mostly flour and eggs, although I visually identified the green onions. I didn’t taste any seafood, although my companion claims she found a piece of shrimp. For something that is supposed to be the soul food of Osaka, it was rather bland.

Thinly sliced salmon arrived, drizzled in wasabi mayo and ponzu sauce. It was very lightly grilled, so it still tasted raw. The wasabi mayo was a bit overpowering for the pieces on top, but otherwise, delicious.

Kakuni came in a small clay pot with two pieces of braised pork belly and a boiled egg. The braised pork belly was cooked until it was falling apart and extremely tender, practically melting in my mouth, and its savoury juices had dissolved into the sweet miso soup. This dish left me begging for more.

The oden udon came with a boiled egg, daikon radish, and konnyaku. The oden soup was light, and the udon was very chewy, of the highest quality.

Ikapiri was an eatable bowl of deep fried calamari in a spicy red sauce which reminded us a lot of BBQ wings sauce. There was very little batter on the calamari, so it was basically squid with BBQ sauce.

Takoyaki is a favourite of izakayas in Japan. The deep fried octopus balls were a little heavy on the flour, not as crispy as I’d imagined.

For dessert, we opted for banana tempura and almond tofu. The banana tempura was fried to perfection and drizzled in mango and chocolate sauce – unfortunately, I am not a huge fan of banana tempura. I much more enjoyed the coconut ice cream that came with it. But that was nothing compared to the almond tofu. The light, refreshing tofu dessert made me want to burst out in song (which wouldn’t have been so out of place in Guu). The almond tofu alone was worth coming back for.

Guu also serves a wide variety of Japanese drinks, from Asahi to sake to Japanese soju. And even some house specials, like Guu’s own Ramune, and a variety of unique cocktails.

It was hard to be infected by the boisterous energy of the staff, particularly when sitting at the bar. Halfway through our meal, the entire staff burst into a Happy Birthday song for one of the customers, and soon the entire restaurant joined in. It was adorable to see the chefs and sous chefs raise their hands, clapping and singing.

The total came to about $20 per person, not including drinks and tip. Very reasonable considering the variety and freshness of the food, and the fun atmosphere.
By the time the meal was over, I felt like I was high (a Guuuuud high, as their menu would claim) and as I waved goodbye to the smiling and waving faces of the chefs and servers shouting sayonara!, I couldn’t wait to return.

Rating:

Author’s Note: Many of my photos from the dinner were rather bad quality due to the low lighting. So, some photos have been supplemented from elsewhere: Sifu Renka, tebpp, and snowpea&bokchoi.

1. It seems that weekends are not as busy as weekdays. Guu is open daily from 5 pm to midnight; if you go before 6pm, there usually isn’t a line-up. After 6 pm, on a weekday, the wait can be up to two hours.
2. Source: Wikipedia.

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 senior 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:

The fried items came first, I guess because steamed items take longer. This has always bugged me about eating dim sum, because I like to start my meal with the lighter, steamed dishes first. But in Chinese restaurants, no one really cares about the order of courses. More often than not, dessert is the first thing to arrive because it’s pre-made.

Taro dumplings, or in this case, taro balls, were the first to arrive. When I bit into them, oil from the pork filling oozed out. The outside was not exactly fluffy, but you could definitely taste the taro. However, they were extremely oily, inside and out – if I had known what they were, I probably would not have ordered them.

Shrimp-stuffed eggplant, an item I’ve never seen before, turned out to be a better decision. The seasoning was good, and the shrimp was succulent in the eggplant. However, the eggplant was a little soggy. But then again, eggplant is extremely difficult to do right.

Steamed spare ribs, a staple of Cantonese dim sum, is one of my favourites. Spare ribs in Chinese is pai gu, which is what this site is named after². These were a little under-cooked – done right, the meat should be hanging off the bones and the cartilage soft. But as always, these steamed spare ribs were savoury and glistening with fat.

Fung zao, or Phoenix talons according to Wikipedia, are marinated chicken feet. They are steamed until they are soft and a blushing red. They are not easy to eat gracefully, but appearances aside, they are kind of delicious – that is if you like chewing on mostly skin, tendons, and cartilage.

Yes, we ordered the “tofu wrapper with pork, mushroom, taro, and duck web.” I had to see what it was! As you can see from the picture, they really need to work on the presentation of this dish, it did not look appetizing at all. And it didn’t taste much better either. I should have known – I mean, honestly, how do you expect someone to eat anything wrapped with duck feet? We ended up having to break the wrapper apart and eat it in pieces. Inside the wrapper, aside from the duck feet, there was a chunk of pork and shrimp, as well as two blocks of taro. It all tasted the same really, except the duck feet, which tasted kind of funny, and not in a good way. This was one of those dishes that sounded, looked, and tasted strange.

As if to save us from the awkwardness of eating something we weren’t sure about from the beginning, this steaming, delicious rice casserole arrived. I love rice casseroles because of the way the rice at the bottom of the casseroles is hard. And with the right casserole dish, the rice is far more aromatic than rice from a rice cooker. This rice casserole was just right.

We saved the dessert for last: egg custard tarts. These were an astounding success, the tarts were fluffy and the egg custard was not too sweet and perfectly gelatinous.

The servers were very attentive as far as dim sum places go, although I couldn’t tell if I should attribute that to their good service or my attentive companion³. The food was average but prices were cheap, and the washrooms were relatively clean. However, with Ambassador Chinese Cuisine in the same plaza, I would rather spend the extra few dollars and go there instead.

Rating:

1. Ok, very debatable, but humour me.
2. Although when I named this site, I was thinking of tang chu pai gu where mean sweet and sour spare ribs, but they are black and not the same as “sweet and sour pork” in American-Chinese cuisine.
3. Servers in these places usually don’t come and refill your water on their own accord, so it may have just been that my companion was very good at beckoning them over.

When I walked into the restaurant, I was ignored for the first few minutes. After my party of four was seated, I asked about the soup of the day, and our server mumbled something awkwardly after a few seconds and ran away. “What just happened?” I asked my friend. “He seems new, but shouldn’t he have been given some training?”
A new server appeared without introducing herself to answer my soup question. I was confused, was she here to answer the soup question or was she going to be our server? This confusion lasted throughout the meal; our table seemed to have two servers, but neither of them were to be found for most of the night.

My friends were more satisfied with their entrees than mine, for good reason. My Five Mushroom Risotto was undercooked and over salty. Risotto isn’t easy to do well, but if they had wanted me to wait longer, they could have warned me so when I placed my order, and I would have gladly waited¹. The mushrooms were good, but including “three onion” in the name for having leeks, shallots, and chives was overkill. (My pictures came out blurry because I was using a friend’s camera and it couldn’t focus for some reason.)

The Duo of Duck is considered to be one of their specialties. The skin was crispy and the sweet potato puree was delicious. Unfortunately, the duck breast was not tender, which takes away most of the novelty of eating duck as opposed to chicken.

The Casarece pasta was probably the most successful dish, also the easiest. The beef tenderloin was somewhat tender and well-done. The pasta itself was a little soft for home-made pasta, but you could hardly notice it with the inclusion of mushrooms and vegetables. In reality, the Cambazolla cream made the dish, and I think the beef actually interfered with the taste of the cream sauce; I would have preferred this as a vegetarian dish.

It took eons for the server to notice us when we were ready to settle the bill. In the meantime, I checked out their bathroom, which unfortunately reminded me of bathrooms in common bars. Not at all in the vein of “New York posh,” supposedly the inspiration for the rest of the restaurant. If trü aspires to be part of the creme de la creme of restaurants in London, it has a long way to go.

Rating:

1. When I’ve ordered risotto at other places, I have always been warned of the wait time.

I arrived at the restaurant early and before I knew it, I was waiting at the bar with the most aromatic coffee I have ever had, on the house. Although this restaurant was more modern than homely, Italian servers almost always end up treating you like kin no matter where you are. Service was impeccable.

When my friends arrived, it took us a long time to order, but the server’s interruptions were well-timed and warranted. It took a while for everything to come after we ordered, or maybe that was just my hungry stomach talking. The cold, awkwardly-sliced bread with olive oil and vinegar was barely enough to share at our table and not nearly appetizing enough for me.

We shared an antipasto plate to start, which I forgot to take a picture of. The cured meats were average, the marinated vegetables a little over-marinated, but the bocconcini was quite nice.

When the food finally came, I knew I had ordered exactly what would satisfy me on this cold winter night.

The rigatoni was, of course, made in-house, and it was quite firm and chewy, although slightly over-cooked. The rose sauce was perfect, not too strong and not too bland. The sweet sausages were heavenly, and the portobello mushrooms complemented every ingredient. I was unsure whether I would enjoy the rapini, but they turned out to be all right. There was a nutty flavour to it that contrasted with the sweetness of the rest of the dish, and only a hint of bitterness. The portion size was just right, and I enjoyed every bite.

One of my friends ordered the Roasted Chicken Breast, which was aromatic in an entirely different way from my dish.

The chicken breast turned out to be more of a chicken quarter plus breast. The skin was glistening, golden, and lightly crisp. As always, my complaint regarding the chicken was that it was too thick. While the meat under the skin and around the bones were tender and flavourful enough, the rest of the white meat was bland. The peppercorn jus was a very interesting complement. Roasted vegetables were well-done, and lightly flavoured. The mashed potatoes had clumps in them, which is how I like them, but no hint of garlic.

Our other friends ordered the Insalata di Bresaola and Capellini. No complaints there, although the Capellini seemed a little bland. It was basically a salad sitting on top of capellini, with barely any sauce. (No, olive oil is not a sauce.) Am I the only one surprised that this is even a dish?

For impeccable service, not kicking my friends out even though we lingered far beyond what would be considered polite, and my satisfying Rigatoni, I would definitely recommend this restaurant. Not sure how I feel about the Capellini, but there are certainly plenty of other great options on the menu.

Rating:

The interior is modern and well-lit. The tables are quite close together but the semi-circle dividers give an illusion of spaciousness.

The menu was varied with bright, bold pictures of mouthwatering dishes. We started with a “dessert” as an appetizer, gui hua tang ou (steamed lotus root stuffed with sweet sticky rice).

This steamed dessert was soft and sticky with sugary juices, and the sweet glutinous rice complemented the slightly crispier lotus root. I have always wondered what dessert in Chinese culture really is, but now I know why I had such a hard time figuring it out. For most families, there is no distinction between courses, everything is set on the table pretty much at once. Sure, you have bigger dishes and smaller dishes, hot dishes and cold dishes, but the distinction is not as clear as in Western tradition. For example, here is a dessert that looks deceptively like an appetizer. Who would have thought of lotus root being a dessert? It comes down to a fundamental difference in technology: Chinese chefs don’t bake. Baking is very much a Western technology, and Canton baked desserts have been influenced that way. Traditional Chinese desserts are made much in the same way that all dishes are made, on the stove.

Next up was ban li shao ji (chicken with chestnuts stew).

This was every good as bit as it looks. Braised chicken with chestnuts is a common family dish in the Shanghai area. It’s an exceedingly simple recipe – just soy bean paste and salt – but the chestnuts add something very subtle and unique to the sauce.

The highlight of the evening, however, was the Shanghai special hot pot.

In this pot contained an elaborate combination of: dan jiao (pork in egg wrapper dumplings), pork in tofu wrapper, Lion’s Head meatballs, fen si (vermicelli), fish balls, dried ham (salted and air-dried as opposed to smoked) and various Chinese vegetables. It was glorious.

Another unique dish was belly pork in a fermented beancurd sauce. Fermented beancurd (or dou fu ru) is not as strange as it might sound. It is not pungent at all, instead it is very flavourful.

Belly pork is pork that has a lot of fat, and it is usually cut in big chunks with the skin still on it. Although this is probably not a dieter’s dream, the skin, fat, and meat goes really well together, especially in a dish like this that would need to be cooked for a long time until a lot of fat has melted into the sauce.

On the side, we also had a bowl of bok choy fried rice.

For dessert, we had lan gua bing (fried pumpkin pancakes).

They are made with glutinous flour and covered in sesame seeds, fried until golden brown. These were melt-in-your-mouth good, the best I’ve ever had.

Service could have been more attentive but no worse than a typical Chinese restaurant of this size. The prices are very reasonable (although a little higher than some of the other restaurants in Scarborough). There are a lot of unique, home-grown Shanghai dishes on the menu that I have not seen elsewhere. I would definitely come back, and next time, I’m bringing more people so I can try more dishes.

Rating:

They boast the best burgers in town but at $12 a burger, they’d better be good. We settled on chicken fingers, poutine, salad, and a cod sandwich.

The chicken fingers were made from fresh chicken breast, and were tossed in a thin breaded coat with light seasoning. They were piping hot and absolutely delicious. Not oily or soggy in the least.
The poutine was made with what seemed to be beef gravy, on a bed of thick-cut fries. The fries were delicious, but the dish would have been even better if they hadn’t used cheddar cheese strands.

The side salad was your average garden salad, but the homemade sauce, in my case honey dill, was surprisingly good. The Guinness-battered cod was tender but bland, although the tartar sauce was one of the best I’ve had. The burger/sandwich was too large to eat together, so I had to eat each half separately.

For dessert, apple crisp was the featured special. The apple was heavily doused in syrup and cinnamon, with a generous serving of vanilla ice cream on top. Presentation was a bit shabby, but the taste made up for it.

Rocky road mud pie was nothing more than chocolate ice cream cake, with loads of almonds and a very yummy chocolate crust¹.

Service was attentive, and the food arrived quickly, although that may have been because the place was practically empty at noon.

Rating:

1. The crust tasted like an Oreo crust even though the menu said “wafer crust”.