Toronto: Black Bull Tavern
Maxpower: The Black Bull Tavern has a lot of potential, I have walked by it many times and commented on its good location – Queen Street West – and their history – established 1833, it also won Best Outdoor Patio in Toronto in 2001. But like all things that you think will be really great – it turns out it isn’t.
Beauty: Close the door already! Their door wouldn’t close and so it ended up being really drafty. Unfortunately we had a seat close to a door, but then again we were lucky to get a seat, the place was packed. When people come in they wouldn’t look behind them to see if the door was closed, and it wouldn’t close by-itself and so it was drafty.
D4V: And ironically it was smokey too. And it felt like an old diner.
Anhedonia: And then through the haze of the smoke we saw the first flashing rose. There was this guy who wondered in off Queen Street and was trying to drum up business and sell us a fake flashing rose for five bucks.
D4V: And he had flashing earrings. Seriously…. Flashing…. Earrings, maybe a belly button ring too, but I avoided eye contact after the earrings.
Maxpower: Yeah I couldn’t believe the flashing roses, however, the staff didn’t seem to mind. So we’re hungry and thirsty (that’s why we stopped in here). Let’s order some beer and nachos, that’s classic pub food, who could screw that up.
D4V: Let’s get pitchers!
Maxpower: Indeed, pitchers.
Misty The Waitress: Sorry we don’t have pitchers.
Maxpower: What???? What kind of pub has no pitchers? Fine, we’ll have a draft then.
Anhedonia: And some nachos. With guacamole.
D4V: Hey look more flowers or something for sale, oh wait these are real flowers.. $10?! Pffffht! Oh… hey these nachos look good!
Beauty: Hey what’s this, there is no ‘layered’ cheese, it’s only on top, the bottom chips are like all dry.
Maxpower: Oh its ok, lets just throw a whole bunch of sour cream on them, they at least have a bunch of olives and jalapenos on them. But wait, whats this? Enough sour cream for like five chips in a take-out container? It’s not like sour cream is expensive. Cut back on the jalapenos and load up on the salsa and sour cream, I like my nachos soggy at the end!
D4V: In summary the nachos weren’t bad, and there were a few choice toppings on them, however, you had about 1 tbsp of sour cream in a takeout mini container, plus another 1 tbsp of Salsa… Good thing was (hrm) that this was enough to cover about 1.5 chips, and since there was no cheese holding anything together we simply had nacho chips with a bunch of toppings left on the table.
Beauty: Hey here comes another man from off the street. He looks drunk. I wonder what he’s going to try to sell us. Umm, he wants to take our picture huh? That’s kinda creepy.
Maxpower: And it’s an old fashioned camera… 5 bucks for the picture? I can buy a roll of film for 5 bucks. Haha look at those other people, they fell for it and bought the picture.
Anhedonia: At least all these guys from the street have the entrepreneurial spirit. It’s better than just begging for change. What I found most entertaining was the sugar daddy I noted on the way out of the establishment. Guess the tall leggy blond had a thing for old, hairy, short, and assumingly rich men. Was entertaining to observe, that’s all.
Maxpower: And we got a good review out of it. Entertaining all the way around. Oh and if anyone is interested the beer was surprising cheap, D4V’s was four bucks!
- Toronto: Black Bull Tavern
- by R4NT
- Published on December 1st, 2003
- Where:
- Black Bull Tavern (298 Queen W)
- Rating:
- Skip
- What:
- Pub / Bar
- Why:
- Chips & Booze
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