David N.
Yelp
It really pains me to write anything less than a glowing review of a Jen Agg restaurant. We're huge fans of her various joints around the city, and I legitimately think that Le Swan might be my favorite restaurant in all of Toronto.
So expectations were high for our trip to General Public. We arrived right on time for our 5:30 reservation and were shown to a nice table on the second floor. I had specifically requested the upstairs area because the '80s decor is right up our alley and it certainly did not disappoint. It was easily the highlight of our visit.
After perusing the menu for a few minutes, we placed our order at around 5:40. (The reason I'm mentioning the time will be clear shortly.) The first dish to come out was the Shrimp Cocktail ("cocktail sauce") at 5:44. The presentation was very disappointing, as the dish consists of five pieces of shrimp on a plate alongside a lemon wedge and a small dish of cocktail sauce.
My first bite was not promising, as it contained a fairly large piece of shell. But once i got past that i was very impressed, as it was the most tender shrimp I think I've ever eaten. And that cocktail sauce is much, much better than the usual sauce of that type.
Up next was the G.P. Wedge ("horseradish cream, green goddess, shropshire blue, buckwheat") at 5:52. It's a tiny portion but I can't argue with the taste. That dressing is something I'd like to just drink out of the bottle. Very tasty stuff.
Next up was my Tongue and Tail Pie ("mushrooms, onion, stout") at 5:53. This dish was a big miss for me, unfortunately. My issue with it was the proportion of crust to filling, as it seemed to be about 70% crust and 30% filling. Both elements were good, don't get me wrong, but the balance was way off. I didn't even end up eating all of my crust.
My cocktail, the Werewolf ("bourbon, peanut, passionfruit, cumin, allspice, lemon"), finally arrived at 5:55. It's a decent concoction. All the flavors work well together, but it's lacking in the boldness I might've expected based on that roster of components.
Also at 5:55 our Potato Roulade ("veg gravy, fried rosemary") arrived. I had seen some pictures of this before we arrived, so I was pretty excited to try it. It was a little disappointing, ultimately. The potatoes were lacking any kind of crisp, and the gravy was a little on the bland side. No bold flavors here, unfortunately.
So as you can see, we received all our dishes within the space of 15 minutes. There was no thought to breathing room or enjoying each course individually. It truly felt like we were being rushed out. It was very disappointing (and infuriating).
We did stay for another hour because we wanted to soak in that ambiance, though. And we finished the meal with the Banoffee Pie, which was probably the highlight. It's delicious.
I'm sure we'll be retuning to General Public if only for that delicious '80s vibe, but considering the bill came out to almost $300, I can't say we really felt like we got our money's worth.