Author: Viviana_45

After a long day on the road and stopping to attend to a difficult family matter, Lee was hungry. I knew my sweetheart was upset and needed comfort food. I checked the net looking for a BBQ joint in the west end of Toronto. Toronto...Life Magazine indicated that Smoke Signals on Dundas West was one of the top BBQ restaurants in the city. Don’t believe everything you read. The exterior looked promising, the façade and the hunger drew us in. Entering the restaurant the décor was obnoxious, the obligatory wooden picnic tables, sans red and white checkered table cloths, big black chalkboard with a confusing menu behind the counter. Some big city, northern idea about what a southern BBQ restaurant is supposed to look like. Upon entry the gentleman behind the counter informed us that we would order food from him, then we were to slide down the counter and order drinks from the woman standing right next to him. We proceeded to follow instructions like good little boys and girls and proceeded to seat ourselves. Promptly, the food was plunked on our table with hardly a word spoken. The food came all jumbled up on metal trays that were covered with sheets of parchment paper. How daring, how innovative, how authentic – crap. Lets get to it. The Brisket was clean and lean. By that I mean that the meat was devoid of almost any fat and it was overcooked. It lacked flavour, there was nothing smoky about it. It tasted like my mothers Sunday roast beef – pale and bland. There was only one offering of BBQ sauce on the table, which was applied liberally to the offending meat. The sauce was somewhat sweet, but devoid of any spice – at least it was wet. This provided little consolation (read, made the meat just edible). The Pulled Pork was equally pale and bland, at least it had some moisture, but overall, more suitable to a kids menu. Again with the liberal dousing of BBQ sauce to give it some flavour and colour. Unbelievably, the Mac and Cheese was also pale. For a second I thought maybe it was prepared with some 10 year old white tangy cheddar, alas, it was devoid of flavour; limp noodles and barely a hint of cheese. It was plagued by crunchy bits on top and throughout the dish – was this some sort of cheese, dried breadcrumbs, in the end it doesn’t really matter. It was like trying to eat plain wet noodles on the beach in a wind storm, crunchylitious, positively inedible. When we were done it was back to the counter. Using interact, the machine automatically indicated three options for a tip, 18%, 20% or other. Now I tend to be a pretty reasonable, if not generous, tipper, but in this case I chose ¨other¨ as the food was underwhelming and there was basically no service. ¨Hey Johnny what about the Ribs.¨ Looking at the Ribs on other dinners trays, meaty but dry as a bone – we decided to cut our losses and save the rest of our cash for gas money to get to the next BBQ joint – hoping for better luck. Needless to say Lee was not feeling the warmth that follows a satisfying meal. She was feeling disappointed and worse then when we arrived. Although locals often refer to Toronto as the Big Smoke there was nothing smoky about Smoke Signals.