March 2 2011

Deseo Bistro

(In the Royal Albert Arms Hotel)

48 Albert Street

No breakfast special, rather, fancy Spanish-inspired brek.

Pepper and potato omelette $8.00. Coffee $2.00, bottomless.

Breakfast served until 5:00 p.m. Wheelchair accessible.

Deseo is, like, the 19th restaurant to open up in the Albert Hotel in the past few years. They opened in October 2010 and have been doing pretty well for themselves, they say. Of course there’s the wonderful old architecture of the hotel that can’t be denied, and I love the eating area that was built as an addition and maintains the name of the hotel set in stone overhead. They have an articulate branch hanging from the ceiling, bearing Christmas lights which I quite enjoyed, reference to Christmas aside.

Their coffee was thick and delicious, and they said they just doubled the dose of Wellington brand. Good man! 3/3. I got the pepper and potato hash with manchego cheese and chorizo sausage. The chorizo was authentic, thick and yummy. I’ve found many a disappointing chorizo that doesn’t remind me of Spain at all, but this one did. To top it off, I got two pieces of not-too-crumbly corn bread. Leif had the huevos rancheros which was delicious, with nice bit of cilantro on top. He got bacon that was thick as we’d ever seen it, and scrumptious. Did somebody say home-made hot sauce? Yes, they had home-made hot sauce. It was super hot! We loved it.

Deseo Bistro was awesome. We loved every part of it, but thought it was expensive. We can’t really find a fault but somehow they just didn’t make the 10/10 mark. It’s probably the absence of the breakfast special. I wish they had hashbrowns for us to scrutinize.

Scott Bagshaw is the man with the flavour!

Extra thick bacon!