The Toad serves up some nice English breakfasts as it turns out. They do offer a ‘Toad in the Hole’ (a Yorkshire pudding with sausages baked in the middle) but I’m not sure if they serve it for breakfast . The quintessential British breakfast ingredient: BEANS was available as well. Beans are not something that I ever crave at breakfast, so I stuck to the standard. Everything else on the menu was quite tempting too.

Our coffee was good and came in nice sized mugs, sporting all sorts of scenes of nature. I had a big bee on mine. The waitress was friendly and as speedy as she could be. She notified us that the computer was down so she had to write everything down.

This didn’t sound like a bad thing but she ended up giving most of us the wrong plates and mixing up one of the eggs bennies. After we swapped plates I was fairly pleased with what I saw. I got two strips of shrinky-dink bacon (Shrinky dink bacon is bacon that has curled up into itself and shrunk like a plastic toy in the oven. Leif) which were good but I can’t recall the last place that served us only two pieces. The eggs were good, to the great relief of the people who were (unfortunately) at the Pony Corral last week.

My multigrain toast was pretty dry, but fortunately we received a large plate of jams, peanut butter and honey. The potatoes were quite tasty but obviously from a frozen bag and deep-fried. They were seasoned though which was a nice touch. The sausage that another breakfaster had was described as “pretty good… sweet but savory, no hard bits of fat”.

The “Toad Benny” with chicken had the following inscription on the menu: “Like eggs benny but tastes like chicken”. Our benny tester said it was interesting but she probably wouldn’t have it again. The eggs Florentine (Eggs Benedict where the ham is substituted for spinach. Leif) came out pretty well but the real winner was Heather’s eggs benny that came out perfect for her, not too runny. She was happy.

The service has to be mentioned again, especially because at one point I was telling a story and casually quipped ‘could I get some coffee’ to nobody, and a moment later a guy showed up “at my request”.  Oops sorry. My cup was still full.

If I were reviewing the eggs benny the score would be higher but as it is, the breakfast special was just over average. The experience was nice as it was a very casual atmosphere and pretty decent food. This was a good hangover breakfast, but it’s not making my top three.

February 17 2008

The Toad in the Hole Pub

112 Osborne St.

Toad Breakfast   $4.95

coffee $1.99 plus tax.

Bloated Toad   $8.95

3 eggs, 3 bacon, 3 sausages & 1 slice of ham.

Hours of operation:

Mon - Sun   11:30 AM - 2 AM

I never knew the Toad did breakfast before being it was recommended to me by The Uniter’s breakfast reviewer, Vivian Belik. She listed it as one of the top three around so I knew it was worth checking out. I like the Toad. The décor is wonderfully accurate as an English pub (unlike Shannon’s unfortunate representation of an Irish pub. Feltic!) and I’ve always had a good time coming here for a drink. 

I like the old beer bottles on the high mantle and the perplexing mirrored beer adverts. I have a couple of them in my apartment but I still feel there’s something insidious in having to look at yourself reflected in a product. Maybe it’s just me. All the chairs are sturdy wood just like the walls. The green ceiling makes the atmosphere quite dark but good for the pubby vibe.

We were sat in the lower games room, next to the enormous flatscreen TV. Thankfully it wasn’t on, but just to be sure I asked the waitress to ignore any request that may come to have it on. The games room was ill-lit but there were no other tables big enough to take all nine of us in any of the other eating areas.

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