February 25, 2010

Rinkside Restaurant

354 Portage Avenue

Hours of operation:

Mon - Fri – It was

Sat –  never

Sun –  clear

Breakfast Special

1. -$7.00 after coffee,
   

2. -before tax
   

The Rinkside Restaurant obviously had some conflicting desires while decorating. For the most part, it’s restaurant-nouveau along the lines of Moxies or Earl’s, but then you look up, and behold - antler chandeliers. Carved out of wood, or cast  out of some antler-polymer from DuPont(?), I guess to serve some contrast – is it a business lunch place or a hunting lodge? There was at least one drunk guy (at 9:00am!) so it sort of leaned toward hunting lodge.

The Rinkside doesn’t like to open on time, apparently. The doors were locked and all the lights out at 9:00am, their opening time. Our small crew of hungries waited around, calling the restaurant and banging on the door, but it wasn’t until a quarter after nine that they begrudgingly let us in. We were all set to try the breakfast sandwich at the coffee joint upstairs before I gave them the one last chance to let us in. They did. Then we ate their food.

Rinkside’s breakfast had a nice presentation, but the substance was lacking. The potatoes were deep-fried, and Leif’s Belgian waffles weren’t very Belgian (they lacked fruit). Everybody who ordered eggs got them over-medium rather than distinguished over-hard and over-easy. That’s three indications of lazy cooking right there. Good thing the meats were good – the back bacon was like thin-cut ham like lunch meant, but still tasty. I had Italian toast, which was really just thick-cut white bread. I liked the little ramekins of ketchup and chili hot sauce they gave us.

Overall, I wasn’t impressed with the Rinkside. If you work in the MTS Centre, it’ll do in a pinch, but I’d rather stroll over to the Alexis Grill, Soups, Sandwiches and More, or even all the way to the Underground Café for my breakfast.

Click here for the Free Press Article