Like mother, like son. I definitely have diner food cravings like a good burger, sheppard's pie, or anything with a gooey cheese at any hour of the day. So on one late night dinner, May and I decided to check out the Counter, a new 24hour diner that opened with the Thompson Hotel just recently
Perhaps we had high expectations since the diner is in a boutique hotel, but our experience was a little underwhelming. The crab cakes were a good starter , but after the first one, we got bored of them and realized there wasn't very much crab meat in them. Yes, perhaps we have become a little-bit-of-a crab cake snob since we started making them on our own, but we do expect some depth and personality.
May was really excited to have fried chicken, and it had a good buttermilk batter but lacked salt, and personality as well. The saving grace of this dish was the accompanying mash potatoes which were rich, creamy and full of flavour. The kind of mash you could feature as the only thing on your plate and be completely satisfied. At least we would.
It was a little too late for me to have courage to order what should have been an obvious dish for me, the Mac n' Cheese. Instead, I decided on the mushroom swiss burger. I wish i didn't, because the bland burger bun washed out any potential flavour the beef patty might have had. The entire burger together doesn't stand a chance against any of the boutique burger joints that are so trendy these days in our city. The onion rings completed the disaster with a thick batter that felt like playdoh in your mouth.
If a boutique hotel decides to open a 24 hour diner, they better have a solid angle in the execution of their food. Are you trying to refine diner food? Or are your reinventing it? The Counter is barely an average diner, and lacks any satisfaction you'd expect for a late night craving. I will be back one day to try that Double Mac n' Cheese, but not for a while, they need to shape up.
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