Address: 150 King Street West (in lobby of the Sunlife Financial Building)
Website: http://www.earls.ca/
Type of Meal: Lunch
Having only gone to Earls for drinks (a frustrating ordeal where you should arrive by 4pm unless you’re willing to wait), I never had a chance to eat anything more than pita chips with dip.
After
returning for lunch, I found the experience much better. The only hiccup was a difficulty
in finding our reservation because one person had already arrived and this
appears to then wipe the information out of their system. Somehow, the manager
figured out the empty table with one person sitting at it was actually our
reservation and brought us over about five minutes later.
While we were
waiting for them to figure out the reservation debacle, a staff member brought
over little cups of soup to tie us over. I received a hearty cream of mushroom
made with large pieces of button mushrooms and a generous topping of green
onions. Despite being in small cups, the
soup was piping hot and had a nice creamy finish with perhaps a hint of brandy?
It was quite delicious even though challenging to eat without a spoon.
Earls’ menu
proudly boasts their signature sourdough bread is made in house daily. Since I
enjoy a nice fresh chewy and crispy sourdough, I ordered the roasted portobellini
and red pepper sandwich ($13) which uses it as a base. The bread was enjoyable –
having a nice elasticity but still airy with a crispy crust. But, since it’s
grilled with butter on the outside (yes you’ll get greasy fingers), the sour
essence of it was covered. Stuffed with a fair amount of grilled Portobello mushroom,
roasted red pepper and fresh spinach leaves the sandwich was filling. A sharp
melted white cheddar and flavourful artichoke aioli made it more luscious, but
the once healthy sounding sandwich ended up being anything but.
Accompanying
the sandwich were hot shoestring fries. They were too salty for my taste, but
with such a hearty sandwich I had little room for anything else. You can add an
extra $1.50 for soup or salad or $2 for yam fries, which may be a better option
especially given the delicious experience I had with the soup earlier.
My
coworkers ordered CAB (certified angus beef) smashed burgers or entrée salads
and all were equally impressive in size and looked appetizing. Overall, the
menu prices are reasonable and service fairly quick. Maybe Earls can be more
than an after work drinks spot after all.
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Gastro World's Grading System
- Anything under 5 - I really disliked and will never go back
- 6 - decent restaurant but I likely won't return
- 7 - decent restaurant and I will likely return
- 8 - great restaurant that I'd be happy to recommend
- 9 - fantastic restaurant that I would love to visit regularly and highly recommend
- 10 - absolute perfection!
