Kelley T.
Yelp
This place is not good and I feel terrible giving this restaurant a 1-star rating because that's just a super low blow. I'm sure the chefs, servers and owners are trying their best to keep the business going. I mean, OF COURSE they want the restaurant to succeed, and of course this and that, but at the end of the day, a business is a business so I apologize in advantage for this really negative review.
I came here with a large group for lunch and I did not expect much, or anything at all.
Just by looking at their menu, I could tell that this restaurant wasn't the greatest. I personally am not a fan of going to restaurants just to eat overpriced and oily sandwiches, burgers and paninis, especially if they're so deep fried and greasey, but Utopia won the majority vote.
And here were some questions I had while looking at the menu beforehand:
1. Why do some of the entrees have the word "dinner" in them? Am I NOT supposed to order those items for lunch? So why is it on their lunch menu then? Or is dinner just a fancy word for addressing something as an entree, but it is already under the heading "entree." In my opinion, I just think adding the word "dinner" to describe a dish is incredibly outdated and reminds me of frozen dinner. I mean DINNER? WTF DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?
2. WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN APPETIZERS AND STARTERS???
3. There is a typo on the menu. Try to spot it.
So, why is the rating so low?
1. As my group went around ordering, about half of the items on the menu were UNAVAILABLE and we got to the restaurant when it just opened! My group of 13 arrived around 11:35 and the restaurant OPENED at 11:30. There were so many unavailable items that it seemed TYPICAL for this restaurant to run out of x or y or z. So, why not take those items out of the menu? Why not focus on perfecting other menu items? A lot of people had to reorder beers, as a group we had to reorder the starters and appetizers (STILL don't know the difference between them. I guess "starters" are more for sharing?????), and no surprise, there was an item in the dessert menu that was unavailable. I understand that this is the type of restaurant to only have 2 chefs in the kitchen and maybe their food isn't that good, but it has a patio and it's cheaper than "nicer" restaurants and bars, and blah blah blah, but I don't know, it's just not for me. It's about money and time. There are so many bars and restaurants in Toronto, and if I can't get the food I want, then I'll just go somewhere else.
2. For the "appetizers" and "starters", we got the chicken karaage, the spanakopita and the mushroom and pesto quesadilla. I really enjoyed the spanakopita, although I did think the spinach was just a little bit under seasoned, but the quesadilla! OH MY GLOB. It just looked unappetizing and when the last quesadilla was left on the plate, no one wanted to eat it because the whole plate was drenched in oil! What the heck?? How much oil do they use and why was it so drenched?
3. For my main dish, I ordered a veggie burger with avocado, crispy onions, grilled onions, onions, garlic dill mayo and the sriracha mayo. Oh my goodness, I literally just remembered that I asked for jalapeños, but they didn't give me jalapeños. But, the biggest problem was that the whole thing was SO OVERSEASONED. I could barley taste the individual ingredients because it was COVERED with salt and pepper. I could see each individual pepper and salt grains in my food!! My fries were also seasoned to such an extreme and no one else had seasoning on their fries. Inconsistency! The veggie burger itself tasted really bad too, but I couldn't really tell because the shit was so salty and peppery that I was too busy chugging water after each bite. I really think I drank more of their water than eat their food.
4. Some of their portions were just way too big and I don't think this was a good thing because I saw a lot of food get sent back and inevitably, tossed. Not only would Utopia be losing money, but it is also a waste of food. I don't think it looks good when uneaten food gets returned back to the kitchen. Someone in my group ordered poutine and it was just massive AF and half eaten. A bunch of people only ate half of their sandwiches because the portions were just too big. When portions are too big, people are also less likely to eat them.
5. Someone mentioned their burger was dry, someone else's panini was really burnt. Someone else got the crab cake dinner and it looked like a bunch of fries and three frozen crab cakes. Someone ordered a shrimp burrito and said the seasoning was weird. JUST UGH!!! I'm not disappointed, because this is the exact kind of food I'd figured I'd get.
Some good things about the place?
1. The atmosphere is nice, I guess. It's really casual.
TLDR; Not Utopia. If you come here, just come for the spanakopita if they so happen to have it that day.
