At Least The View Was Nice?

Broadview Hotel was voted best rooftop patio. I didn’t doubt that, I just doubted going there at the end of February. Winter and patios do not equate in my mind. And is it a patio if it’s an enclosed space?

I’ll give them this much: the patio had a great view of the city to the west, the sun was just finishing setting, it all looked very picturesque. The bar itself also had a nice cozy ambiance like a ski cabin. All well and good- but I was here for food.

We split an order of the fondue, which came with two glasses of Jacob’s Creek double barrel, the barrel part giving the distinct impression of whisky moreso than wine. It worked out for me that I prefer wine to whisky. It did kind of overlap with my second drink, the mulled wine but that’s ok. Overall, the drinks were great. The food not so much. The cheese part of the fondue was great, I liked that. BUT you need something good to dip in it, and quite frankly a giant pile of ever-so-slightly stale baguette just doesn’t cut it. On the menu it warned that the fondue takes 20 minutes. Perfect we thought, we can eat the potato rosti while we wait. Except the fondue came out before the rosti. I would rather have waited while they cut the baguette freshly (instead of, as I suspect, they had a giant pile of precut chunks). Soon the rosti came out and I switched to that for a change of pace. One bite and I was right back to the bread. Rosti is apparently just another word for hash browns. No thank you and no amount of smoked salmon will make me like it. I was disappointed. Maybe dessert would save the day? There was no question between “smores” and maple creme brulee. Why were smores in quotations? I kind of wish I had found out. Instead we had a not-so-great “maple” creme brulee. I say “maple” because it barely tasted of maple. They did a rush job torching the top. Parts were burnt and other parts were not fully crystallized.

Not great. But I will be stealing their mulled wine recipe. What a genius idea to add apple cider!

 

New Number One!

Up next in our fooding rotation was the top 100 list, which we’d made quite a dent in. We were in the double digits, Kiin was #25 or so? After our dinner, I think that list needs to be redone. Kiin should be above Momofuku, hands down.

I love a restaurant that by default has a sharing menu. It makes life so much more fun. We started with the dumplings. The menu said there would be 4 in total, I was picturing big pillowy steaming, well, dumplings. Man was I wrong. And happily so! The flavours and textures all blended together so perfectly and harmoniously, it reminded me of Grey Gardens (although that was a whole ‘nother level). Plus they were tiny little bite-sized pieces. Up next we had the dish with the crunchy noodles and it was the perfect amount of crunchy and some citrusy zest. Our final dish was the chicken and sugar snap peas. It was settled, this was the best meal of the year! Yay! A new contender that actually earned the top spot rather than just getting it by default!

It’s a good thing we don’t take the neighbouring tables into account. Otherwise, these were some of the weirdest and at times most annoying people we’ve eaten around in a while. To one side we had an awkward second or third date? And to the other side we had drunk 40 something year-olds enjoying a night out, at some point one was complaining about being down in the grass among animal shit while giraffes (which she claimed are not nearly as cool as everyone thinks?!) walked by.

 

Spoiler: Worst Burger of all Time?

The only thing Rudy Burger has going for it is that they are located across from Birreria Volo. The burger and the chicken burger were both awful. The fries were terrible. I had a few bites of each and gave up. What was Rudy Burger doing on my list? It was from Instagram or Toronto Life. But why? I am starting to think I didn’t read the details and it was on there for the worst. It was almost impressive how bad it was.

I would supplement the rest of my dinner with the cookies we got from The Night Baker (voted best new bakery). The cookies were alright but the basic dough was kind of flavourless and the fillings didn’t fill-in enough of the flavour. I did like the softness and at least they weren’t too rich. The mocha one was easily the best, followed by the oatmeal and the reverse-chocolate. The Oreo one fell flat. The purple yam cheesecake one was surprisingly good. I had started with it because I assumed it would be the worst. I was wrong.