Hy's Steakhouse & Cocktail Bar has an extensive happy hour menu with plenty of drink options, including a daily mocktail selection ($8). And if you’re celebrating something (or just feel like pretending you are), all champagne and sparkling are 40% off! Here’s your excuse to splurge on a magnum of Moët or sip a glass of prosecco for just $10.20.

There are also more than a dozen food options offered at 30% off the listed price. Slightly confusing, yes. If they’re already printing a separate happy hour menu, why not just list the after-discount price? Who wants to do math when enjoying happy hour?

Having skipped Hy’s famous cheese toast ($14.95 reg; $10.47 HH) last time, I was determined to fix that mistake. The starter is exactly what it promises: two thick slices of white bread smothered in cheese and toasted until it’s a glorious greasy, melty situation. It’s good, but I think it’d be even better if it was garlic based.

The staff certainly keep busy, especially with items like the Caesar salad ($27.95 reg; $19.57 HH), which is prepared tableside. Sadly, Hy’s version is one of the most disappointing I’ve had. I appreciated the lightly applied dressing, but it was so flavourless it might as well have been plain oil and lemon. Where are the anchovies and garlic? Heck, even a pinch of salt?

Seasoning consistency is an issue. After such a tame salad their prime beef burger ($31.95 reg; $22.37 HH) swung in the opposite direction - unbelievably salty. Don’t even think about adding ketchup; the mayo alone is more than enough. I eventually removed the patty and ate pieces with the unsalted crispy fries to balance things out. Such a shame, because the thick patty could have been great in handheld form.

Our burgers also likely sat under a heat lamp too long. The plates arrived burning hot, I know because my forearm accidentally touched one. While the heat ensures nothing arrives cold, it also overcooks the beef to well done and makes the burger impossible to hold unless you move it to a side plate and wait it out. And if you want it as a cheeseburger? That’ll set you back another $4.95.

For dessert, the banana foster ($22.95) could use at least one more banana, since the caramelized fruit is the whole point. It’s quickly simmered in butter and brown sugar before being flambéed tableside with a shot of rum. Orange juice puts out the flame and adds a bright finish alongside a big scoop of vanilla ice cream. I didn’t expect to like the citrus, but it actually helps tame the sweetness.

Hy’s makes a classic key lime pie ($17.50) with a graham crust (too hard), a creamy citrus centre, and a generous swirl of whipped cream on top. It’s not mind-blowing, but it’s a satisfying version of the classic.

Their happy hour menu runs weekdays from 3-6pm, weekends from 4-6pm, and daily after 9pm. While not everything landed perfectly, Hy’s still offers one of the better upscale happy hours in Toronto - especially if you love a drink deal. Because who doesn’t want some bubbles to balance off business?

Nobu’s all-you-can-eat Sunday brunch ($110 per person, $55 for children 5-12 years old) is sprinkled throughout the second floor of the restaurant. As you’re guided to your table, hot food and carving stations line the walkway, doing a great job of whetting your appetite. Front and centre in the bright dining room is the sushi bar, where a team of chefs continuously turns out maki and nigiri. Off in the corner sits the dessert table, with a ceviche and spicy cucumber salad ice bar tucked in for good measure.

I appreciated how the food stations are spaced out. There’s no dreaded bottleneck of diners waiting, nor that frantic urge to grab everything at once just to avoid lining up again.

Chef Nobu Matsuhisa was one of the pioneers of Japanese-Peruvian cuisine back in the mid-90s. At the time, dishes like spicy tuna crispy rice and yellowtail crudo felt fresh and exciting, while miso black cod became a signature that kept people coming back. These are still dishes I enjoy, but decades later they’ve been copied endlessly, making what’s served at Nobu feel far less groundbreaking than it once was.

If you’re going for the miso black cod, make sure you get it hot. My first bite, taken from a platter that had been sitting, was bland and slightly fishy. A second round, straight from a freshly placed tray, was noticeably better. It’s tasty, but it didn’t rank among the best miso cods I’ve had.

The crispy rice station is a great idea in theory, but the execution falters. The wooden spoons make it awkward to scoop up the rice nuggets, and many of the serving utensils (spring-hinged chopsticks and oversized soup ladles) are poorly suited for a buffet.

Thankfully, the soft-serve ice cream station sits right beside the crispy rice, so I grabbed a simple stainless steel teaspoon. It turned out to be the perfect tool for neatly dolloping finely chopped tuna, salmon, and mashed avocado onto each bite. The crispy rice itself would benefit from being thinner and longer for easier spreading and eating.

Unsurprisingly, the sushi was underwhelming, even when taken from freshly dropped plates. The rice was bland and too cold, though at least the pieces were kept small, letting the fish take centre stage. All things considered, it’s better than most buffet sushi, though I usually steer clear of buffet sushi stations altogether.

Some of my favourite bites ended up being the unexpected ones. Nobu’s Greek salad has a generous feta-to-vegetable ratio that leans salty but spooning it over the garden salad below helps balance things out nicely.

The prime rib carving station also drew me back for seconds. While the meat quality wasn’t exceptional, the variety of sauces made it fun to sample and customize each bite.

Despite not having a big sweet tooth, I found it hard to resist the dessert spread. The pandan-laced crème brûlée and flan-like matcha panna cotta were standouts. Just do yourself a favour and skip the dry Earl Grey beignets.

Nobu offers something for everyone including the breakfast staples of bacon, sausage, tater tots, and eggs. Just be warned: their scrambled eggs are the ultra-soft, almost runny style popular in many Asian cuisines, which isn’t for everyone.

Nobu’s Sunday brunch is fun and indulgent - just don’t expect to be blown away by anything. It’s worth doing once for the experience and is a great option for an unhurried catch-up with loved ones (they did not kick us out after 2 hours). Some hits, some misses, and plenty of options to keep everyone at the table happy. Just make sure you grab the good stuff while it’s hot.

Happy hour menus have been making a comeback with the weakening economy. Planta’s menu is one of the most extensive and offers great value to boot. While beer and wine ring in at $6 and $9, respectively, it’s the $10 cocktails that wet my whistle. You can’t go wrong with the lych please, a gin cocktail lightly sweetened with lychee, lemon, and pineapple with a hibiscus sugar rim that delights.

Planta also provides a huge food offering that doesn’t skimp on portions. With the lettuce wraps ($12) being half off their regular menu price ($23), I expected a shrunken helping the equivalent to two or three wraps. So, when the full plate arrived with enough of the gochujang covered crispy fried tofu and roasted Brussels sprouts to make seven wraps we were flabbergasted. Oh no, we ordered way too much food!

The menu offers no description with the chick’n fried mushrooms ($7) but they turn out to be lightly battered oyster mushrooms that’s dusted with salt and pepper served with a thinned sweet chili sauce. They’re dangerously addictive and so tasty that I could swap these for a chicken nugget any day.

In a similar vein, the crust of the cauliflower wings ($8) was so crispy despite not being overly battered. Drizzles of unagi sauce and sweet chili mayo covered the vegetables giving each bite a burst of flavour.

For a lighter nibble, the summer rolls ($6) are an option. It’s just filled with a lot of carrot and rice noodles and needed more of the other ingredients (papaya, tofu, and herbs) to stand out.

The crispy rice ($9) would work better left intact, so the starch doesn’t become cold and dry. At least they put plenty of the spicy ahi watermelon and guacamole on top to balance out the tasteless rice ball.

I preferred the spicy crab hand roll ($5 each), which was stuffed to the gills with shredded hearts of palm tossed with ponzu and spicy mayo. It’s more of a taco than handroll so it isn’t the easiest to eat but does mean there’s little rice and tons of filling.

The sole dish that threw us both off was the spinach and artichoke dip ($11). How can you mess up a creamy dip? By adding so much coconut oil into the recipe that coconut was all we could taste.  It felt like I was eating a savoury coconut cream pie with chunks of vegetables. Its only saving grace was they don’t skimp on the tortilla chips… too bad we didn’t need more than a few each.

Luckily, we had ordered so much food that we didn’t need the dip. Even without the dish, we left stuffed and with enough leftovers for another meal. Washed down with two cocktails each, our bill came to about $70 a person including gratuities and taxes. Welcome back happy hour dinners.