Lil’ Bacci: a lil’ lacking

Lil’ Bacci was one of my favourite pizza places in Toronto. Bacci is still a great east end option; one of the few establishments that is both family and date friendly. However, it seems that this once great pizza haunt is on a downhill trajectory.

The restaurant is small, but not claustrophobic, the service is attentive, and the prices are moderate. Dinner for two will run you about 45$. What made Bacci affordable on a student budget was to avoid the wine, split a pizza (14-16$), and if you we’re really hungry, pair your half pizza with an appetizer or salad.

Unfortunately, the establishment’s manager ran off with a few thousand dollars, resulting in a huge staff turn over, from servers to chefs.  It seems their great dough recipe was lost in the shuffle. What was once one of the best thin crust pizza restaurants in Toronto, now serves mediocre artisan pizza. On my most recent visit the pizza’s consistency was appalling; on the outside it was dry and crunchy, while the inner parts of the pizza were undercooked resulting in flaccid pizza slices.

I ordered the Bufala pizza (a simple pizza: tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella, and basil), and found it under-sauced and over-cheesed.  I would of preferred shredded basil on the pizza, rather than whole leaf, that would have made for better flavour distribution.

Lil’ Bacci has never been amazing when they stray from their pizza forte. The lemon spinach gnocci was possibly the worst dish on their menu, but under new management it has been replaced by three traditional Italian pasta dishes, spaghetti and meatballs, gnocchi in tomato sauce with buffalo mozzarella, and fusili Primavera (around 17$ a plate). 17$ a plate for pasta seem exorbitant to me. Especially since pasta is one of the most cost and time effective dishes you can make.

I will, however, recommend Lil’ Bacci on the quality of their ingridients. Their Prosciutto was lean, with just a hint of fat, and had the perfect balance of dryness and wetness. It tasted like it was loving cured by an Italian nono. Bacci also has the best home preserved chilies in Toronto.

I recommend skipping dinner here, but keep an open mind regarding lunch. Lil’ Bacci has an excellent lunch special. You choose any soup or salad and pair it with any panino, pasta or pizza for 10$. They shrink the pizzas for this lunch special, but for 10$ you really can’t ask for more.

The bottom line: go there for the lunch special, enjoy the ambience, but don’t expect rave-worthy pizza.

SERVICE 3.5/5
AMBIANCE 4/5
PRESENTATION 3/5
TASTE 2.5/5
PRICE $$/$
HOURS Seven days a week 11:30 am- 10 pm
LOCATION, LOCATION 892 Queen Street East

Joyous Redemption

Joy’s a dinner disaster, but they shine when it comes to brunch.

Joy Bistro is an east side behemoth with two patios and two floors. I recommend, weather and warmth permitting, B side patio.  B side gets great sun, and has a warm Mediterranean ambience with its terracotta stucco walls and wooden patio furniture. In winter and rainy weather, Over Joy, their upstairs indoor option, is also a very good second. Over Joy is bright, elegant, and open, with a great view of Queen St. E.

Brunch seems to be quickly becoming the popular meal of the twenty something. It’s affordable, it’s plentiful, and at a decent hour leaving the rest of the day  open for whatever Sunday whims tickle you. And Joy Bistro is worthy of your precious early Sunday afternoon, especially if you can snag a sun soaked spot on B side by their fire pit.

At Joy brunch, coffee and tip will run you about 15$. The selection isn’t anything out of the ordinary, but they have a healthy selection of bennies (10-13$) and sandwiches (for the more lunch inclined 9$). And their Dutch oven pancakes will fill any belly (8$).  The coffee is unending, always a plus on a Sunday morning, although it is weak, and waving down a busy waitress can be difficult.

I recommend their Rowe Farms Steak and Eggs (14$). Rowe farms provide local, conscientiously farmed, meat, so you can rationalize the cost. It comes served with two eggs, any style, home fries and toast. I had my eggs poached, and they were perfectly runny. And the meat was done rare, like I asked for, although it was a touch on the cold side when it arrived at the table. The home fries were crispy, and they were interestingly seasoned. If you are watching your wallet this week they offer many traditional breakfast items for less than 10$.

Service is never spectacular, but that is mainly due to how crowded Joy Bistro is for brunch.

Ultimately, Joy Bistro succeeds when it focuses on simplicity and quality. The problem with Joy is that there is just too much, too many patios, too many rooms, and too many flavours. They seem to like juggling a lot, but when they concentrate on one thing, like good traditional brunch fare, they succeed.

SERVICE 3/5
AMBIANCE 4/5 (4/5 for B side patio, 3.5/5 for Over Joy)
PRESENTATION 3/5
TASTE 3.5/5
PRICE $$
HOURS Open seven days a week from 11:30am on. Dinner service begins at 5pm. Brunch is served from 8am-4pm on Saturdays and Sundays.
LOCATION, LOCATION 884 Queen Street East

Underwhelmed Instead of Overjoyed

Looking to satisfy that bourgeois bone on the east side, but not willing to pass Leslie Street? That’s how I felt recently; with the cold moving in I just wanted to pamper myself with a nice meal. From the outside Joy Bistro looks unaffordable to the average twenty something, but on closer examination their lunch and brunch menu are within the weekly budget, and even their dinnertime prix fixe won’t hurt your wallet too badly. However, after my experience there I would recommend Brunching at Joy and nothing else.

Their dinner prix fixe is typically priced around 30 and changes daily.  For a special night out 30 is manageable, but be wary– straying from the prix fixe and adding on extras, like wine and water, can lead you to a painful bill.

There are four elements that combine to make a memorable dining experience: service, ambience, presentation, and taste. Joy is lacking in all four categories. The ambience is warm, but nothing special, the service was slow and condescending, and the food was lacking.

The waiter was standoffish, to the point of being rude. He was simultaneously able to ignore our table and pressure us into tacking on extras that were outside the fixe. We ordered water and were presented with a bottle of sparkling without consultation. That may be practice in Europe; however, I find backdoor upsells like that distasteful.

At our server’s recommendation we strayed from the daily prix fixe. The seared wild fish with tempura shrimp, buttered savoy cabbage, and house made bacon was a disappointment.  While the slow cooked lamb shank with celeriac crushed potatoes, cellar vegetables and mint jus was simply mediocre. The fish was over done and the tempura was heavy, greasy, and cold. The accent of bacon added nothing, other than more grease, to the already too complicated dish. The lamb did not fall from the bone as a good lamb shank should, and worst of all it was over salted.

Perhaps this was a one-time flop—maybe Joy delivers for dinner on other nights, but I have not been inclined to find out. As for the budget? It went out the window. I ended up paying about 60 dollars for my mediocre meal.

SERVICE 2/5
AMBIANCE 3/5
PRESENTATION 3/5
TASTE 2/5
PRICE $$$$

HOURS Open seven days a week from 11:30am on. Dinner service begins at 5pm. Brunch is served from 8am-4pm on Saturdays and Sundays.