Restaurants
The County General
The County General is Splendido's tattooed cousin from the South, with a penchant for rock music and bourbon. But don't let its tough-as-nails attitude fool you, because just like with any other cowboy, its all a facade to cover up a big heart. Open for just over a week now (in the space that used to be Oddfellows), I tried to go for brunch last weekend and it was jam packed. This place is already doing some serious business. Given my tendency to loiter I decided to go back at a quieter time, and that ended up being a Tuesday afternoon.
The space itself is open and bright, fairly minimalist in decor, and heavy on the lumber. Two-by-fours extend down the length of the ceiling in some places, and the entire back wall is like a very cool shrine to Rona...or Jenga. I received a warm welcome from Julia (who also goes by Colonel in these here parts) and was served by Bobby who was equally friendly as he was informative about the food and the restaurant (there isn't a farm they source from that they haven't been to first).
Their lunch menu is sandwich focused, while dinner has some of the same, with bigger dishes thrown in such as Grilled Flank Steak, Smoked Pork Belly, and Two Way Fried Chicken, with brunch being served up to hungry weekend folk. Seeing as it was 1:00 on a weekday, I perused the lunch offerings.
The Heirloom Tomato sammie was very tempting, but I went with the Fried Chicken Thigh Sandwich ($14) because eating healthy is important to me. For this same reason, I chose the side of frites as my vegetable. The chicken itself came on a buttermilk bun of slider size, given that chicken thighs aren't that big (lucky chickens...) and dressed with avocado chutney, coriander, and green onion.
The chicken was very tender (Bobby informed me it was brined for two days), and although I'm not normally coriander's biggest fan, it and the chutney paired very nicely. All earlier facetiousness aside, maybe this sandwich isn't the most heart-smart option, but given its small size, it left me feeling full without feeling gluttonous or greasy. Really though, going to a place like The County shouldn't be about calorie counting, but about enjoying the comforts of Southern cooking. And I was comfortable.
The frites came served in a lowball glass, sprinkled with spice and served with a smoked ketchup that's made in-house. There is a huge difference between good fries and great fries, and these were great fries. Crispy on the outside, and soft on the inside with enough heat provided by the spice to render a nice slow burn. Kinda wish they had been served in a highball glass.
I had a lot to choose from for the liquid portion of my meal. The County serves up Ontario VQA wines and locally crafted brews, but given their Southern roots, their passion lies in rum and bourbon. They offer 50 varieties of "grog" and "hooch", and even do flights of the stuff. My elbow twitched in anticipation of the bending it could do at a place like this.
Given the warm weather, I had a hankerin' to quench my thirst with something a bit lighter from their cocktail list. The "Figgy Dew"($16) which Julia claimed as her personal favourite, is made with Bulleit bourbon, fig, cucumber, lemon, topped with ginger beer and garnished with a dried fig. It was "figgin" delicious, but given the price I could only "figgy do it" once... okay, I'm done now.
So having just quit my day job, as I sat sipping Bourbon (on a Tuesday afternoon) I realized that if it were 15 some odd years earlier, and there was a giant car wash across the street, I could have been the inspiration for a certain Sheryl Crow song.
Footnote: I returned later in the week for that County Heirloom Tomato Sandwich ($10) after all. Seeing as it was consuming my thoughts, I in turn, consumed it. Turns out everyone had the same idea, because tomato sandwiches littered neighbouring tables. Served on toasted crusty bread, and topped with Ottawa Valley cheddar, mayo and that ubiquitous avocado chutney, it was delicious, but messy. Very messy.
My cute blue and white gingham napkin didn't know what hit it. I would consider it for take-out in the future, to be eaten in the confines of my own home, where a mixture of tomato juice and mayonnaise running down my arm is more socially acceptable. I had the spicy fries yet again... they were calling to me, I swear it, but this time I chased them down with a pint of Muskoka Cream Ale.
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Had the Fried Chicken Thigh Sandwich and a pint.
Chicken was tender, toppings were first rate.
More fries would have been appreciated, but the portion was perfect for what we needed at half-three in the afternoon.
Overall was great, would recommend and will return.
A moment or two after saying we'd wait 15/20 minutes for a table, I accidentally lent on the dimmer for the lights - it was going to be quite a wait, so I wanted a lean. The same almost-rude waitress ran up to me and was abrasive and actually rude this time. I apologised and explained it was an accident. At this point me and my partner talked about leaving, but decided to stay ...that was until another lady came up to us and told us to be careful about the light-switch. Rudely. I got the impression it was quite a common occurance from the way she said it.
At that point we'd had enough and decided to leave. I said "you know what, a couple of you have been quite rude to us, we're going to find somewhere else". As far as I'm concerned this was her opportunity to apologise and persuade us to stay. But no. Nothing, not even a little "sorry". We left.
It's a shame this pretentiousness exists - it looks like a cool place, the food looks good, but I'm not prepared to sit through a meal where the staff are rude and act like you should be grateful they even let you walk through the front door, especially when it turns out there's a better restaurant two doors down. At this rate, Ursa will be doing swift trade with County General's ex-patrons.
The server we had was not only a poor excuse for a waitress, but she was seriously RUDE and condescending. Don't ask a question, because you're libel to get an eyeroll, sarcastic deep breath, and a short/snappy answer.
Do they even read these comments? (or care?) I'd understand if the place was brand new and they were still ironing out their staff - but they're not new anymore. Time to get your shit together.
Called in on Saturday around 7pm to see what the wait was like for 6 people, was told "around 45 minutes". Great, we headed right over.
Arrived there about 10 minutes later and was RUDELY told by a woman at the front that they don't seat groups of 6 and then was told that we needed to be "educated" in how this type of restaurant works (I could only imagine by "this type of restaurant" she means "pretentious"). When we tried to explain that we had spoken to someone on the phone who said it was perfectly fine and there was a 45 min wait, she continued to escalate the situation and embarrass us in front of our four out-of-town guests. We left.
Funny part is that this was the same server who we saw rolling her eyes at a EVERY single member of a table seated beside us the last time we were at TCG. We were thankful that we didn't have her serving us last time and funny we ended up having a run in with her at this, our second visit. Frankly, the food is pretty good, but DEFINITELY not worth that kind of attitude! As you can see from the reviews above, I'm not alone.
After giving a negative review on Twitter, I was contacted by Aja, one of their managers. She was proactive in trying to understand what happened, but realistically the response I got was "sorry that happened, give us another chance", which to me translates to "we still want your money, but are unwilling to get to the root of the problem". Though I appreciate the sentiment, I'm not really willing to go back and drop another $100/person to potentially get treated like I'm a moron. It was clear from our exchange that she wasn't going to fire that server (even though it was the same server who I can confirm was rude TWICE), so it's clear they don't take customer service seriously and are happy to have a disgruntled waitress serving/greeting their guests.
There are plenty of restaurants in the area that provide equally good food and actually value your business. I'd suggest stearing clear of this one. Try Enoteca Sociale if you're looking for somewhere hip with great food AND service.
1. Upon entry, the staff was too self absorbed and nurturing their Queen-St.-West-I'm-too-good-to-bathe look to greet us nicely. In fact, while our lumberjack-attired server took our order, he did not make eye contact with us once.
2. We received empty sharing plates. They were quite pretty. Especially with the half pound of food still stuck to them. I worked in restaurants long enough to know that a bad dishwasher about to get fired will spray plates and not sanitize them. You could get away with that for a while because people won't notice. But that much crud? What's worse is that it failed several layers of inspection, namely by our waiter who apparently doesn't look at his guests OR his dishes.
3. Why does McDonald's put your fries in open cardboard? so they don't get soggy. You put fries in a metal cup, you get a greasy soggy mess. Otherwise, well seasoned. Thanks, that was the best part of the meal.
4. We ordered a burger and the fried chicken thigh sandwich. The breading had a pale insipid uncooked appearance to it. I used my cruddy fork to pry it open, only to find that the chicken was raw. Pink, rubbery raw texture, unmistakable. My dispassionate server informed me that it is fine, that I was wrong, and it was cooked sous-vide. I refrained from telling him that I teach young chefs about this technique and returned the plate.
Here's the thing. If you are going to use sous-vide, which is a very risky method for cooking any protein because it keeps the food in a bacteria breeding temperature for long periods of time, you want to project to your customers that your establishment is as clean as an operating room.
And rule #1 of hospitality, is that the server, not the customer is always correct.
I went home waiting for the ecoli in my medium burger to kick in.