Joey Restaurant (Shops at Don Mills)

Life is perfect to have lunch during a beautiful Saturday afternoon at a relaxing upper level patio with the bestests.  Finally, I had my first dining experience at Joey Restaurant in Shops at Don Mills.  This is my fourth attempt of going to Joey, the first three times were all during dinner time.  I was told to wait for at least 1.5 hours, an extremely impatient person like me will never waste time waiting so I just dined at other restaurants around.  This time we arrived at the restaurant at around 12:30 pm and it was not that busy, so we got our table right away.

While I was waiting for Mr & Mrs. LCS, I ordered a martini, the Thai Lover - alize red passion, lychee liqueur, pineapple & cranberry juices.  It smelled very good and tasted much like 'soho seven'.

We wanted to be healthy once again, so we ordered the Viva Salad served with roasted chicken, sundried cranberries, avocado, apples and feta with a honey balsamic vinaigrette, garnished with cilantro.  It was different since I never had salad served with apple. 

I also chose the Lobster Grilled Cheese Sandwich.  Basically, it was an atlantic lobster, brie and cheddar grilled cheese sandwich served with fries and cocktail sauce on the side.  Both dishes we planned to share, so the kitchen divided up into two for us which was a good customer service.

Overall, due to all the good feedback I heard about Joey, I had high expectations from this lunch.  I will rate the restaurant with a 8.5/10, because the patio is one of the best I've been to so far and the food was excellent.  Everything was very tasty and delicious.  However, in my opinion, a lot of the dishes are a little over-priced compared to other restaurants of this type.

Cafe Mirage Grill & Lounge

First day of long weekend, the weather was super nice and I really had the urge to have dinner at a patio.  Sadly, I failed to find the 'perfect' patio and I was lazy to drive downtown, so ended up at Cafe Mirage on Sheppard.
(My definition of a 'perfect' patio' is one with good food, not on a main street, and can be comfortably seated, please give suggestions if anyone have anything in mind.  Thanks!)

I have always wanted to try the desserts at Cafe Mirage, so I know this will be a great chance to.  Miss. A.Wong and I arrived at around 7-ish but the restaurant was pretty quiet, so we even picked where we want to be seated.  Both of us didn't want to have a heavy main dish, because we want to save our tummies for desserts!  I ordered a Chicken Caesar Pita with side-salad.  It is a whole-wheat pita stuffed with tender chicken breast, crispy romaine, and sautéed onion tossed in creamy Caesar dressing.  I love their pita because it was toasted, so it was crispy.  

Miss. A. Wong ordered a Chicken Chipotle with house salad.  It has grilled chicken breast, golden onions, and Swiss cheese with spicy house chipotle sauce and is served on toasted foccacia.  I tried a quarter of it, I like my Chicken Caesar Pita more because the toasted foccacia is just very similar to toasted sandwich so it wasn't too special.  

Last but not least, our dessert!  We ordered a Chocolate and Strawberry Ice-Cream Waffle with strawberries.  I rarely have negative comments about desserts, so of course it was very good and actually very filling.  However, it wasn't 'too special' and 'one-of-a-kind' thing.  I actually  really want to try their cakes next time because they look delicious and the portion served is enormous too.  

'To.live.my.life' give Cafe Mirage on Sheppard a 7/10 because overall everything was just standard.

Glow

An overdue blog posts about Glow on Shops at Don Mills is always on my to-do list.  A few Fridays ago, my friends and I wanted to go to Joey's for a farewell dinner with a friend.  However, the wait was too long so we ended up in Glow.  We sat in the Patio but there was actually no view, we were actually facing the walls.  The service was bad because we waited very long for our waiter just to order drinks.  The bread that comes in the beginning wasn't special, but it comes with three different spreads for us to try.

For main course, I ordered a Gourmet Turkey Burger (bunless) topped with dried fruit chutney, and sweet potato wedges & asparagus.  The turkey was overcooked and burnt, and the dried fruit chutney was way too sweet.

Two of my friends both got Cobb Salad served with roasted chicken, crisp lettuce, charred corn, avocado, tomatoes, eggs, asparagus, toasted sunflower seeds, blue cheese & a buttermilk ranch dressing.  They did not like it at all because of the texture of the crisp lettuce, and they described the salad as "weird."

'To.live.my .life' will only give a rating of 4/10 to Glow because of its poor service and low quality of food.  Personally, I will not go back for a second time.