Tag: brunch

Sunday Brunch – The Gladstone Hotel

brunchgladstoneflorentine

The Gladstone Hotel Ballroom Cafe
1214 Queen Street West
416-531-4635
Brunch for two with all taxes, tip and coffee: $35

Okay, so to be straight up honest, it’s not actually Sunday when we visit to do this review. It’s the morning of January 1st, and the oldest continually operating hotel is Toronto is serving up brunch – not to weary travellers as it did so many years ago, but to hungover locals and hipsters looking for something hearty and filling to ease them into the new year.

The high windows of the south-facing ballroom cafe normally have warm sunlight streaming through them, but today it’s a grey view of wet snow. The servers are bright-eyed and smiling, however, and water and coffee arrive at our table quickly.

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Sunday Brunch – beerbistro

beerbistro
18 King Street East
416-861-9872
Three course brunch for two with all taxes and tip: $90

There’s an old cliché about the difference between night and day, but I’ve actually found a good example for which to apply it. I guess you could say I’m one of those “sensitive types”, or maybe my hearing is shot from too many industrial concerts in the 90s, but I hate, hate, hate loud restaurants. All that clinking of cutlery and loud music and raucous laughter. When you’re out for a quiet dinner or actually want to talk to the people you’re with, many restaurants are just not conducive to that situation.

Thus, I’ve become a bruncher. Even though I know how kitchen staff across the city, yea, around the world, hate the concept of getting up early after a night of busy service to poach eggs for those too intimidated to do it themselves, I really do prefer the usually quiet solitude of brunch over dinner.

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This is Why People Go Out For Brunch

I cook breakfast. Every day.

Some days I do nothing more than put some fruit on cereal, but most mornings, Greg and I eat a real breakfast; buckwheat pancakes; quinoa and maple-glazed trout; scrambled eggs or sometimes oatmeal.

So when the weekend comes around, I am more than happy to toss aside my spatula and go out to brunch.

While brunch is the new dinner according to NOW Magazine food critic, Steven Davey, my colleague over at Gremolata, Ivy Knight, is more than happy to explain why a restaurant brunch is a very unhappy thing for the folks who actually have to cook it.

But, see… people like to go out for brunch because it allows them to eat foods they wouldn’t, or couldn’t, cook at home.

Many breakfast dishes are fussy, with many ingredients, all cooked á là minute, and if keeping two pots and two frying pans and maybe the oven all under control at the same time isn’t your cup of tea, going out for brunch where someone else can do the juggling for you probably is.

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Mitzi’s Cafe and Gallery

Mitzi’s Café & Gallery
100 Sorauren Avenue (at Pearson)
416-588-1234
lunch for two with coffee, tax and tip; $35, cash only

Think for a moment about your perfect neighbourhood café. It would be small and cozy, hidden from the beaten path, but still busy enough to flourish. There would be funky mismatched furniture, artwork on the brightly-coloured walls, and an open kitchen where the staff regularly broke into song (in a good way). There would be a cute patio and maybe a big picnic table out front under an old apple tree, where locals gathered each sunny day, kids and dogs in tow, to sip coffee, share gossip, watch the birds flutter by and enjoy their breakfast.

Oh yeah, and the food would kick some serious ass.

Don’t have one of those in your ‘hood? I feel bad for ya, dude, because here in Parkdale, we’ve got Mitzi’s, and we love it.

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