Focaccia - 25 Hayden Drive

This restaurant is located just south of Bloor west of Yonge. It's a small house transformed into a restaurant. It is my experience that these type of places are the pure gems in the city, low key yet good value.

Service - Larry has become a household name for the service at this restaurant. Everyone who has ever been here always asks when they hear someone else who goes, "What'd u think of Larry?" A card at the entrance describes him as the perfect waiter, polite, funny, and a whole bunch of other adjectives. Anyways, we did not have him serve us when we got there, this other guy was much more low key, but I kind of liked it as well. He was helpful when asked anyting, but would let us have our time decide as well. All in all, I think overall it was just good enough to be helpful yet non-intrusive. 0.80/1.0

Environment - A small place, with two floors. I understand they want to fill the ground floor first but the second floor looks so much nicer with a fireplace and bar. You can see it on your way to the restrooms. Anyways, it was not noisy, so quite a good place for a date because of it's coziness, the right amount of light so you can still see the other person. And the decor was simple, however I noticed a wall was kind of bare. 0.70/1.0

Food

Complimentary Bread - Nothing spectacular, Focaccia bread, not heated or anything. Nothing to brag about.

Appetizer - Fried Calamari with Papaya on the side - This was really good, but you can't mess up fried food too much unless it's still drenched in oil. There seemed to be an endless supply of calamari which is good, and they had a hint of taste to it. I enjoyed this.

Appetizer - Grilled Scallop with this starchy vegetable - I wish I remembered the name to this vegetable, it's like potato sticks, but it wasn't potato. Anyways, I enjoyed that actually, a nice alternative to potato. The scallops were grilled to perfection, just enough juice in them to enjoy and big enough to not feel ripped off.

Entree - Beef Tenderloin - This beef was very good, not a lot actually but perfectly made at medium. There were about five slices I think so not exactly the largest amount, but they were so tender and juicy. Definately recommended.

Entree - Pork Tenderloin - This was good too, but not as good as the beef. Something didn't seem worth it in this dish, maybe just because it was not spectacular with just pork. Anyways, go with the beef over the pork, unless you really want it.

Dessert - Vanilla Flan - This was a homemade flan that was a good fair portion for dessert, was soft and melted in your mouth. this was really good, a light fix to end off the night.

Dessert - Apple Pie with Vanilla Ice cream on side - Don't bother with this, store bought apple pie, barely heated, store bought ice cream. Just average.

Overall - Food - I was expecting a bit from this place, as I heard many good things about it. But I think it disappointed because I found out afterwards the original chef had left and the previous sous-chef was promoted. So it wasn't bad, but it didn't the least bit live up to it's hype. 0.65/1.0

Presentation - This was really nice I thought, everything up to the dessert looked really nicely prepared, looked larger than it was, and you can tell at least some thought went into it. However I wouldn't rank it as art. 0.70/1.0

Price - This was a set menu place, so take one of each course above and you have yourself a meal. For $30 it wasn't bad, I'd go back if I knew the menu in advance and felt it was worth it. You get a fair amount for $30 as any three course meal would at $30 would, but still the night with wine is not cheap either. 0.70/1.0

Overall - I would come back here as I said before. Service was good, but service does not supercede food and value. At the end of the day it must be good food, which it was, and value, which I could say it was too. But I can see a lot of room for improvement as well, especially with the food. Nothing else needs to be changed really. With better food the price rating also goes up. 3.55/5.0