T on The Dakota Tavern

The Dakota Tavern
249 Ossington Ave. (a few doors north of Dundas)
416-850-4579

B, our resident cowgirl, was adamant about going to The Dakota Tavern for their Sunday bluegrass brunch. I happily agreed because I, along with the rest of Toronto, love going out for brunch.

B and I met up before heading into the Tavern together. The place is underground (literally), so the entrance can be easy to miss. We made our way down into the dark bar. It was weird; if I didn't know any better, I would have never known that it was day out. It was that dingy. Dingy is fine during the night, when I'm out about town for some drinks. But when I've lugged my ass out the door for some hangover brunch, I want some nice windows that let in natural lighting. Just not my day, I guess.

Sunday bluegrass brunch is $12 for all-you-can-eat. The deal included unlimited scrambled eggs, home fries, sausages and blueberry pancakes and a cup of orange juice. The food came to us in a heaping pile on a large plate. The scrambled eggs and home fries were quite nice. The eggs were fluffy and hot, and the fries were greasy and flavourful. I didn't care for the pancakes. They were pretty tasteless and dry. The sausages weren't spectacular either. In fact, they were kind of repulsive. Biting into the slightly wrinkly sausage felt like biting into a rubbery, slightly salty rod. Sausages should explode with piggy flavour! They should be oozing with grease! They should be salty! I just ended up eating a lot of eggs and home fries and drinking cups upon cups of coffee.

I noticed that the Tavern had a wide selection of beers on tap. Bryn took advantage of this and ordered herself a pint of Guiness (and this was after she ordered a shot of vodka to kick her orange juice up a notch). I was too much of a wuss to order breakfast beer, but I kept their nice selection in mind for future nights out.

The bluegrass band that played (because, you know...this is "bluegrass" brunch) was fun. Three plaid-clad dudes (duh), respectively playing a banjo, an upright bass and uh...a fiddle, I'm guessing. Bluegrass is always guaranteed fun. It was nice to start my day with live music.

The service at The Dakota is great. The servers were helpful and all smiles. And I'm not talking about cheesy, irritating smiles like the ones at chain restaurants like Montana's or East Side Mario's. I'm talking about small, genuine smiles that are enough to show diners that their presence is welcomed at the joint. I didn't feel bad for asking for more water, like I sometimes would at other restaurants. At one point, our server had forgotten about my coffee refill, but I didn't feel the least bit irritated because she was apologetic and was on top of the refill right away.

I don't think I would go back for bluegrass brunch again, simply because I am a brunch snob and even good scrambled eggs and home fries just don't cut it for me. I would, however, go back to check out the night scene. Maybe there will be lots of lanky, gangly white boys in plaid shirts and tight girls' jeans for me to ogle. Mm-hmm!