Restaurants
Nirvana: Sanctuary at Rowdy College and Bathurst
A row of greasy spoons and the legendarily loud Sneaky Dee's have, until recently, made the corner of College & Bathurst a haven for the rowdy. Not that I mind really, but sometimes it's nice to have an escape option nearby.
That escape has materialized in the form of Nirvana, a new restaurant/lounge now open in the old Picadilly location across from Sneaky's. A clear re-incarnation of the Red Room (444 Spadina), Nirvana offers up that same eclectically furnished and dimly lit bohemian hideaway, only with a more polished and upscale feel.
The menu also differs in many areas, adding more complex ingredients to the dishes, new appetizers and even oysters from Oyster Boy. Not that they've nixed the very College/Bathurst greasy nachos platter from the menu, but like I said before, it's nice to have options.
Where once we'd have ordered nachos, pizza and fries, we now go for the grilled pita with sour cream and eggplant dip, a pita pizza covered in pesto, olives and artichoke hearts and a plate of garlicky scalloped potatoes (pictured at the top).
The grilled pita is almost more fried than grilled, but other than that, no complaints. We especially dig the crispy potatoes. All make fantastic starters or standalone dishes to share alongside a pitcher.
From the entree list we try out various East-Asian style entrees like glass noodles with tofu, chicken curry, and vermicelli with chicken and spring rolls. All come with a mixed green salad to start with.
The soy-rich glass noodles are paired with piles of stir-fried vegetables and tofu making for a very savoury and filling meal - especially after all those appetizers. The curry is rich and flavourful, though a little too spud-heavy on the potatoes-to-meat ratio.
The only real miss here is the vermicelli dish.
The chicken and spring rolls are good (typical of this Vietnamese dish), but the "vermicelli" are too thick -- more like spaghetti in disguise. Not to mention that beside them sits another salad just like the one we'd just had.
To make up for it, I order a couple pints of Sangria in the hopes that they're as great as the Red Room version.
Thankfully, they're even better.
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Our entrees ranged from $6-$10, appetizers between $4-7!
A waiter came by to ask if we wanted drinks, so we ordered two cappuccinos and an earl grey tea. After about ten minutes, he came back with two cappuccinos and a lemon grass-green tea and took our order (three cakes). After he left we saw that the cappuccino was served in small cups with no saucer or spoons. So much for adding sugar. Also, they use really subprime coffee beans to make their espresso. Just really nasty Rubusta junk.
So then began the waiting game while our coffees went cold. After twenty five minutes I asked the waiter if our cakes were ever coming. With a big dumb smile he said, "Yes they are!"
Five minutes later, I asked a waitress for our bill - no more time to wait.
And magically a minute or two later, our waiter appeared with the cakes, saying, "we would like to offer you free drinks." So we accepted because, what the hell. And waited another ten minutes for two more bad cappuccinos (this time served with spoons) and some (free!) hot water for the tea bag. Of course the cakes were gone by the time the coffee arrived. Apparently it's too much to ask for coffee and cake to be served together.
Finally when we did get the bill (for 3 cakes, two cappuccinos, and one tea) we noticed that the cakes were $1 more each than they had been on the menu. We brought it to the attention of a waitress who fixed it but implied that it was somehow our fault because the price goes up after 4:00. Sweetheart, we really don't care when or if the price goes up at a certain time of day. We just want to be charged the price on the menus we were given. Oh, and a simple "sorry about that" would be nice.
All in all, it was a waste of an hour. Oh yeah, the cake was mediocre typical baked-off-premises stuff, not terrible but not remotely interesting either. The only added effort to slicing and plating it was to squirt some tasteless chocolatey sauce on the plates - yeah, that took all of 30 minutes! And the staff never apologised once. We won't go back and certainly cannot recommend it either.
Service is a little inconsistent but acceptable. The temperature inside can get chilly during the winter. The washrooms downstairs have taken a real turn for the worse; they consistently smell awful as of late.
The ambiance, a select handful of really good staff, and pretty decent food at a pretty damn good price keep me coming back again and again.
You cross posted that long complaint on a few websites. Why? Clearly you had a bad experience, but the staff and facility tried to rectify it. Stop trying to slander them!
For some reason, the last three or four visits have been some of my worst dining experiences ever. The staff took forever with orders and completely disregarded my allergy concerns, even though I've had to send back my food a couple of times.
I used to quite enjoy their food and I wanted to give it another chance. When I went back, my dinner had a chunk of dish sponge hidden under my rice.
I miss their cheap brunch and sweet potato fries, but I will never go back to a restaurant that disregards my health concerns and display carelessness which could potentially harm the customers.
I too work in the service industry, and I can guess you never have. There is absolutely no reason why anyone working at that restaurant would be so rude so your claims don't make a lot of sense and seem pretty exaggerated.
First of all, who in their right mind would wait half an hour and not leave?
You probably waited 5 minutes.
Ha, you're likely one of those really annoying spoiled people who think the world revolves around them and their uncontrollable need to intoxicate themselves enough to excuse their incessant behavior.
And, if anytime I'm doing my job with two arm fulls of trays of drinks and plates and some miserly moron decides to angrily stop me in my tracks "on their way to the washroom" to ask a very stupid question I definitely make it clear to them that I am currently occupied. Without using the words "busy" or "deal" or course, those of which I doubt were used on the occasion you are describing.
Correct that the bathrooms are not the best smelling but I can assure you that this restaurant IS inspected, as every restaurant in Toronto is.
All of this being said, your declaration to never return to nirvana is probably welcomed. I don't think any servers would miss you and your ignorant tantrums.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001652.htm
Decent lunch service, servers are apparently night blind however as the dinner service is usually slow, especially if you're sitting on the peripheries. One night our server didn't appear at our table for an hour. We were going to order more drinks, but apparently she didn't want our money... or a tip.
Food is okay. I always get the avocado and brie sandwich and it's never let me down.