Out & About #179 | Queen Street Warehouse

It's inevitable: life gets busy. But that's precisely the reason why catch-up sessions are deemed necessary.
 
After two years of laidback planning, a lunch appointment with a long-time pal finally took place. The setting was rather unexpected: two friends, both hailing from the suburbs, met up at Queen Street Warehouse, a restaurant/pub situated between the Entertainment District and The Grange.

​We both agreed in unison when I had suggested El Furny's sister location; "I've been eyeing that place for a while now." came the confession. I had also been contemplating the restaurant for some time, but the intention to visit became more apparent after discovering their all-day $4.95 menu.
 
With the exception of alcoholic beverages and a few specified items, each and every item on their clipboard-backed paper menu was priced just under five dollars (or $5.59 including tax).

Water was served in two stout, evidently grimy glasses (thank goodness for straws!) by an extremely casually-dressed waitress. She hastily took our orders and whisked the menus away. It was at this moment that I discovered the condiment tubes to be unnecessarily grimy. (Do I want to know the condition of their washroom? Probably not. Not now, not ever.)

Lengthy discussions regarding recent life happenings were exchanged for some times before I started wondering when our dishes would arrive. I recalled many reviewers mentioning that the crew was slow to put out food – it happened to be true after all, even when lunch hour had yet to start.
 
The Union Street Noodle Salad and Chorizo-Queso dip with chips and baked bread eventually made their way to the table after a painstakingly prolonged duration of time.

The nachos and crispy chunks of bread was average for the most part; the diced tomato-topped dip was reminiscent of full fat cream cheese mixed with even heavier bits of sour cream. Some sparse bits of soggy material, presumably spinach due to its lack of flavour and dark hue, were also found within, along with Cheez Whiz-esque hints surfacing every few bites. Proper melty bits were nowhere to be found.
Overall, the dip was overly rich for lunchtime fare, incapable of being alleviated by the crispiness of the chips.

The Union Street Noodle Salad was of epic proportions for the price being charged. However, as other reviewers had mentioned, "you get what you pay for". The large bowl was comprised of dry, chewy noodles (the variation that is normally deep fried and used as a Wendy's salad topper), not-so-fresh greens, half an avocado, and a handful of deeply dehydrated chicken pieces.
It supplied more than enough energy as a meal, though wasn't particularly enjoyable to consume. Satisfying yet by no means incredible, this would likely be the student pick on the menu for small eaters. (I do commend their appropriate usage of partially ripened avocado though.)

Service was exceeding casual, lackluster, and insincere. Our waitress was dressed much like a customer - jeans, a cropped top, and Nordic knit sweater - and didn't do a particularly good job of ensuring that we were being attended to in a timely manner. (In contrast, she did spend quite some time explaining several menu items to another table which was composed primarily of the opposite gender. Tsk.)
Mediocre offerings and inattentive service are common things to experience while dining in the Downtown Core scene (even though they really shouldn't be), but tardiness, forgetfulness, and a stingy attitude are factors capable of depressing such food affairs to shockingly new depths. Our bills came approximately fifteen minutes after we requested them, and the takeout boxes were disregarded at least twice. The grimace I received from the waitress after she scanned the receipt for her tip was undoubtedly the most unrefined aspect of it all. And the mindblowing part was that the restaurant was half empty. There shouldn't have been any excuses.

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