Travel Zoo had a great brunch coupon on for Baldini in Leslieville and I figured this would be a great opportunity to explore the east end of the city. Vanessa, Benny and I decided to walk the 3km from Cabbagetown to the restaurant. It only took us about 30 minutes and it was really a lovely stroll and on a good sunny Saturday morning.
We arrived at the restaurant with 15 minutes to spare and were seated fairly quickly. Baldini’s usual lunch and dinner fare is Italian, so I was curious to see if they would try anything interesting on their brunch menu. Vanessa went with the Eggs Pacifico – Eggs Benedict with smoked salmon. She found the meal was OK but nothing really wowed on her plate:
I opted for the Breakfast Back Ribs – pork back ribs with a poached egg. I really enjoyed my meal, the pork ribs were perfectly done and literally fall off the bone:
Vanessa and I also enjoyed the colourful fruit that came with our meals. I have never encountered dragon fruit (except for playing fruit ninja) so this was a nice surprise. Dragon fruit has a very mild, pleasant, almost honey dew taste.
Overall, the thing that killed it for us at this restaurant was the service. We were only 1 of 3 tables in the restaurant and yet the service felt very slow and absentminded. Our waiter took forever to come and take our orders and then forgot to bring us out our drink order until after he served us our meals. The bill also took some time to come to us.
Baldini is not a terrible bet for brunch in Leslieville. There is definitely some good food happening here, they just have to refine their brunch menu and really work on their front of house staff.
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