Restaurant: Bannock
Location: 401 Bay Street, Toronto, ON M5H 2Y4
Price Range: $$
[wp-review]
To be honest… I visited this restaurant back in summer and I’m not sure why I held off this review until now. I supposed the dinner wasn’t really that exciting to be blogged about, or I actually forgot that I went to this restaurant, lol.
Anyhow, Bannock is part of the Oliver & Bonacini restaurant groups and it is described as a hip-Canadian restaurant that is located directly across from the Nathan Phillip Square. The dining area is quite nice and spacious with a small cafe underground (along the PATH). The menu wasn’t huge and had a nice varieties of comfort food such as sandwiches, burgers and pizza.
The grilled octopus was cooked perfectly with a flavorful sauce on the side that added just a right kick of heat to it. However the side cucumber salad was meh and the rice felt dry and overcooked.
I have had a miniature version of the duck poutine pizza at Taste of Toronto 2015 before, unfortunately they served it with a flat bread which turned out to be soggy. After seeing my Instagram picture of that, T decided to order the dish at the restaurant when he was in Toronto hahah.
The pizza was humongous and it was possible to share between 3-4 people! The pizza itself was a thin crust with a layer of mozzarella cheese and thin gravy. Then comes chunks and pieces of duck leg confit slightly cooked and topped off with an immense amount of fries, which I thought was a bit off. I would have liked it a bit more if they gave us more duck confit than fries. I also thought the entire pizza was slightly salty.. which was a shame because the fries were perfectly crispy and the crust was not soggy at all!
Overall considering the pizza was supposedly Bannock’s signature dish, it was a bit of a disappointment but was still rather good. I supposed it’s well worth a visit, but if you are a tourist and truly want an authentic poutine, you better off finding some other restaurants for that.