University Club Of Toronto

Tonight I had the opportunity to eat at the University Club of Toronto.  This restaurant is located in downtown Toronto in a very historic building on University Avenue.  When you walk into this place, you see wonderful old paintings, lots of history in the building itself and a sense of grandeur.  Although the rooms are reserved for dinners following meetings, one can certainly organize weddings and birthday parties. They even have an actual restaurant in the building as well.

Tonight we had a 4 course meal.  I ordered a Carrot, orange and ginger bisqur with a fleurons garnish, a Baby mesculn greens with blue ermite cheese and roasted pine nuts served with a herb vinaigrette, Roasted angus AAA striploin with peppercorn sauce and a Warm UCT Apple Pie with Ice Cream.

When the bisque arrived, I said to myself that it sure looked like butternut squash soup. If i didn't know better I could have sworn that this was butternut squash.  The soup was warm but as for taste you really couldn't taste the orange or the carrot. It just tasted like squash!! 

Carrot, orange and ginger bisqur with a fleurons garnish

Next came the salad.  It looked nice with a variety of exotic vegetables mixed in with some nuts and tomatoes, however when one bites into the salad it sure was bitter and when I mean bitter it was bitter.  Not too sure what made it that way but it was really difficult to eat.  I noticed many of my colleagues only had a small sample of their salad.  I tried to mix the salad and the dressing thoroughly but the only thing that tasted normal were the baby tomatoes on the side.  The guy sitting beside me took one bite and he was done.

Baby mesculn greens with blue ermite cheese and roasted pine nuts served with a herb vinaigrette

The steak came out next and here's the funny part about this order. As I was placing my order to the waiter, i asked him to make the steak rare.  The waiter's response was "well we can't do that" and that if I didn't like the steak then I was told to "just send it back to the kitchen."   Quite frankly. I was a little stunned by the waiter's response.  Not looking to stir up crap at the dinner table, I reluctantly agreed.  The steak arrived and for whatever reason my piece was about 3 inches smaller in diameter compared to guy next to me!! Looking around the table, and there were about 20 of us, everyone steaks varied in size.  Some had a piece as small as mine and some had gigantic pieces.  The size of my steak was equivalent to the size of the Angus burger in a McDonald's restaurant.  The entree also had a piece of broccoli, a piece of burnt cucumber and buttered up asparagus as vegetables.  The steak itself was half medium and half well done.  Some would say it was closer to being well done but as you can see in the photo, there is a patch of red where it was a little more rare.  For a rare loving meat eater, this was by far quite disappointing.

Roasted angus AAA striploin with peppercorn sauce

Since the first three meals were rather disappointing, I turned my attention to the apple pie.  For those who don't know I absolutely love apple pies.  I can eat an entire apple pie on my own.  When it arrived, it looked good.  It had red cherry decoration surrounding the apple pie. However looks could be deceiving.  I took a couple of bites and truthfully it was one of if not the worst apple pie I have ever had in my life.  It was absolutely bland, the apples were actually stale, it was lukewarm and worse of all, it was flaky.  I only took 2 bites of it.  Like seriously, McDonald's have way better apple pies than these guys.

Warm UCT Apple Pie with Ice Cream

In closing, all I can say is that this was by far one of the worse meals ever.  After a long day of meeting, I was really looking for some really good food.  The location, the landmark and the place looked like something only a king and queen would go there to eat but the food served was certainly not food that was fit for a king.  I was extremely disappointed and so were many of my colleagues.  Rumor had it that a hefty deposit was needed to secure the venue and its food.  Since I was not in charge of the bill, I don't know if that was true or not.  Personally after eating a meal like this,  I rather take my money and go anywhere but here.

For this place I give it a 1.5 out of a 5 and that would be a very generous 1.5.

University Club Of Toronto
380 University Avenue
Toronto, Ontario

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