Food Sparks: Father's Day Brunch

The only reason I asked that question was when I was researching Father's Day meals this past weekend, I found that some restaurants which had Mother's Day menus, don't necessarily do one for Father's Day. Are fathers less special or are they less picky? Since this is a food blog, I'm not going to debate that question. Bottomline is, I had a hard time finding something for a Father's Day brunch in Toronto that is at least a little special.

I checked all the lists like Ten Best Sunday Brunch Places in T.O. but it seems that even restaurants on the same list had great variations in their customer reviews and prices. I don't see any point in doling out $50 to eat eggs benedict at the King Edward, even if it is the King Edward. And while there are some attractive deals out there like a $19.99 Sunday Brunch at the Hot House Cafe with live jazz, I worry about some of the comments made by customers and the overall mediocrity they imply. There are of course plenty of good restaurants in Toronto we could have gone to but I finally picked Le Select because it is not only reputable but they are organized enough to put together a Father's Day menu. When you really study it, it's a mish mash of its regular brunch menu with a few special items put together for the special day. So how hard is it, really!

We were invited to Le Select for dinner years ago and it was the expensive wine that stayed in my mind more than anything. Seeing the place in broad daylight was quite different - it was in fact quite a charming bistro, reminiscent of the ambiance of the old Parisian restaurants. When we were shown to our semi-circular booths, we were quite surprised to find ourselves surrounded by young fathers out with their babies, one of them barely a month old. This is a far cry from our own parenting days when we would never think of taking our babies out to a bistro for Father's Day. But this is downtown Toronto, in the midst of a condo boom with an influx of young well-off families. So it was an eye-opener, a social and cultural experience worth the trip. The food was good but the best one was the dish we didn't order - a two inch slab of French toast stuffed with apples and cranberries which we saw pass us by after we placed our order. Next time...