October 25 2013
Habits Gastropub
928 College St.
From the street, this place looks like a really nice place to spend some time. It looks newly renovated, in a retro kinda of way. If that makes sense? When you walk in the place, you can tell someone has taken some time and money setting this place up. The open kitchen is to the left of you when you walk in, and the place has an inviting atmosphere right away. The entire right wall is brick which reaches to the back of the restaurant and it is scattered with black and white photo's. The only seating that is available is "high-tops, which normally I do not like, but these were not bad. I am afraid this is where my praise for this place ends, and the nightmare known as the "Habits Gastropub" begins.................
Read on.............
A young girl came and greeted us and we were led to a table about half way down the restaurant. (Us) today, is myself, Brandon and Stephanie. I had my finger's crossed that we were going to find something Brandon would eat because we had walked along College for a bit checking out where to eat tonight. I hoped we had a winner, or I would never hear the end of it from Brandon.
So this guy strolls up to our table. Now you need to get the full picture. He looks like a used car dealer from the eighties. He has his shirt unbuttoned, a little too much, but that was so you could see all his chest hair and the chains that were hanging from his neck. He was staring at us rubbing his hands together. I was holding my breath at this point....and we should have gotten up right then and there and left. As I looked at him and I just wanted to jump up and say "Hurrah", "the eighties are here again!". I didn't. I just asked for a wine list.
When I was researching this place on line I could not find the wine list anywhere but I would've ordered wine, or I would have snapped on someone. They have an extensive list of "booze". Single malts, tequila's lot's of beer. Very impressive. I guess they figure if they get people drunk enough they won't notice what else is going wrong with their evening.
So this guy(I am assuming he is the owner), brings me my wine and then as rubs his hands together again, asks us if we wanted to know what today's specials were. We all nodded in agreement and say sure, yes. He grimaces and says "Oh I don't know them, I will get you someone who does". WTF?? We all just looked at each other, with our mouths open, and Brandon chuckled to himself. If I hadn't ordered the wine, I would have gotten up and left. The girl that had seated us, was brought back to us, literally he pushed her over to us, and she told us the specials. Specials, which were obviously so unforgettable that I cannot remember a single one at this moment, and needless to say we did not order any of them either.
We ordered some starters and I had my fingers crossed.
onion rings & sweet chili
warm marinated olives & chourizo with pita
grilled pita & seasonal dip
Brandon had the onion rings and Steph ordered the grilled pita, and I had the olives. They all looked really good. Steph and I shared ours, while Brandon ate his rings. I noticed a really strong SALT taste in my mouth, but I chocked it up to the fact that I had ordered olives. But little did I know that Brandon and Steph were also tasting SALT as well. In fact, it was on everything. Brandon's onion rings were on a board with a stick on it, so they were stacked. Both Steph and I had one, and there really wasn't a lot, and he just couldn't finish them because of the SALT.
The "guy" came over to collect our dishes and made a remark about Brandon not finishing his rings. "Oh a big boy like you can"t finish these rings?"
Really? Now you are insulting the customer's?
We asked for water and I secretly prayed that our mains would be better.
Brandon ordered the
Habits burger, smoked brie stuffed in Ontario beef, puttanesca relish, pancetta, house-made spicy ailio, hand-cut fries. Sounds good right?
Steph ordered the
Smoked fried chicken, panko-crusted Ontario free-range capon con fit Portuguese cassoulet, chili & smoked cheddar biscuit, sweet chili sauce. Again sounds really good right?
I ordered the
Fish and chips (2 pc) you had a choice of 1 or 2 tempura-battered haddock, house-made tartar sauce.
How can they screw up fish and chips right?
Well it all looked really good when it arrived, it looked like they had spent some time preparing our meals. It looked like they been prepared with some care. Oh it was prepared all right!
You know the main ingredient in all our meals??
SALT SALT SALT SALT SALT SALT SALT SALT SALT SALT SALT SALT SALT SALT SALT
This could not be possible? Everything was just coated in it.....it was unbelievable. None of us finished our food. I think we all took doggy bags with us, but I don't think anyone ate their food once they got it home.
I know I tried it the next day, just to see if we were all crazy from the night before, but no there it was again, SALT!!!
I am surprised we didn't die of coronaries there in the restaurant.
Needless to say we did not order desert, and got out of this place as quickly as possible.
When I was researching their web site to write this blog, I could not help but notice some reviews that they had posted on their page. These people were going on and on about how great this place and the food was?
Seriously??Are you people are drugs or what? Did you got to the same place we did?
One other thing I forgot to tell you was that our table as I had mentioned earlier was in the middle of the restaurant. So we got the music from the front of the restaurant and the "warmings up" of the musicians from the back of the restaurant. No one bothered to turn off the music that was playing while the musicians warmed up which is what normally happening in a normal establishment. What added as well to the increasing "noise" was the banging of the dishes from the back kitchen which we could hear because we were right beside the swinging doors to the kitchen. This was not just going on for 5 minutes or so, but it lasted our entire meal.
It was VERY VERY ANNOYING! You couldn't just hear one thing, it just blended together and what it was , was just very annoying NOISE!
It made you feel very irritated! Just remembering it now, makes me cringe!
I would NEVER GO to this place ever again in my life! Even if I was offered a free meal, I would say NO!!!
So many restaurants struggling to get noticed in Toronto, and this place has the nerve to serve that stuff they called food to us.
PLEASE I BEG YOU! SPEND YOUR MONEY SOMEWHERE ELSE!!
No happy faces today...A HUGE FAIL!
Number 45 of 50 restaurants
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