Description: We spend the afternoon shopping at Yorkdale Shopping Centre and decided to have dinner before traveling to our hotel. We found the Pickle Barrel and decided to give it a try.
There is a cafe type place on the main floor, but you have to go downstairs for the restaurant. We thought we would have to wait for a table as there were lots of people milling round the reception area. However, we were seated straight away in an area at the rear of the restaurant.
The menu is huge in every sense of the word. It was very thick and had many options. It was fortunate that there was plenty to read in the menu as we waited over ten minutes for the waiter to serve us. My husband chose Fish & Chips and I had a Shrimp Kung Pao stir fry, we both had soft drinks.
The food took quite a while to arrive, probably fifteen or twenty minutes. During the wait time the waiters in our area were arguing over who was serving what table, in front of us and several other full tables. This was very unprofessional and made some guests look uncomfortable, especially if it was their table they were arguing over.
Eventually we received our food and the fish and chips arrived on a plate covered in newspaper (English style). My husband said the fish was nothing special and was most definately frozen, not fresh. The chips were horrible and he did not finish them.
My stir fry was a little better, but not much. It was edible, but nothing special, I did not finish it either. We decided not to have dessert as we didn't want to be disappointed even more.
Our two meals and two drinks cost $36.
We would never eat at this restaurant again, but it seemed very busy. This means either other people have different tastes and expectations to us, or they receive a lot of one-off guests who like us may not go back again.
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