ARTS & CULTURE
Monday, September 29, 2014 13
Jurisfoodence: In Search of Toronto’s Best Brunch
Food Adventure #2 – Aunties and Uncles
kate henley › staff writer
Aunties and Uncles
74 Lippincott St.
F
or m y bru nch adventure this week I,
thankfully, wasn’t hung-over and decided
that it was time to see what all the fuss was
about at Aunties and Uncles. I had been
hearing about this place since moving to Toronto,
but living in Passy meant taking an hour-long transit ride downtown, followed by what I had heard
was an extremely long wait prior to getting seated.
Essentially, I would have had to eat breakfast before
heading out to brunch, and I was not interested.
However, when I set out this week I had very high
hopes, as many have heralded Aunties and Uncles as
“the best” brunch spot in Toronto. Unfortunately, my
brunch bubble was burst when my experience did not
live up to the hype. Let’s break it down:
Brunch Hours
Aunties and Uncles specializes in brunch/lunch and
is open seven days a week from 9:00-3:00. Despite
what I wrote above, even the most hung-over souls
from Passy should be able to stumble their way downtown before it closes.
Wait Time/Service
I had heard that Aunties and Uncles gets insanely
busy on the weekend, so I chose to go at 12:30 on a
Friday afternoon. Though it wasn’t too busy, my
breakfast companion (BC) and I had to wait a while
for a table and I was honestly very confused about
their wait system. When I tried to put my name on
a list, I was given a judgmental look and told to sit in
a line of chairs outside; clearly, I was not hip enough
to dine here. Nothing pisses me off more than a lack
of organization, and I imagine that on very busy days
and in the wintertime this system just does not work
very well, but maybe I’m wrong. Regardless, we were
eventually called forward and taken to our table.
My biggest issue with Aunties and Uncles was the
poor service. After seating us, our server wandered
around the restaurant aimlessly while singing along
to the music for ten minutes before he bothered to
take our order. We then waited roughly twenty-five
minutes for our food and were not given any drink
refills in the meantime – but more on this below.
Atmosphere
Despite the poor service, I really like the atmosphere
at Aunties and Uncles: located in an old house, it is
decorated with old signs and kitschy wallpaper, and
reminded me of the type of place you find in a beach
community. While we were there, the speakers were
pumping out music from The Beatles and The Boss (or
“Brucey” as one of the servers exclaimed), but not
too loudly to interfere with conversation. This is definitely a spot where you can talk freely about last night
with your friends, but not necessarily a place I would
take my parents (they aren’t aging hipsters, but if
yours are, they might like it). Unfortunately, my BC
and I were stuck at an awkwardly placed table next to
ê The food looks as good as the service.
the cash register, meaning we couldn’t privately discuss our server’s complacent attitude, as he was sipping his coffee a mere two feet away.
Coffee
The coffee wasn’t great, but wasn’t terrible. What
WAS terrible was that we finished our first cups
within five minutes of sitting down and our server
didn’t come by to ask if we wanted more. To refresh
your memory, I hardly function prior to getting at
least three cups of coffee in me, so I grew increasingly
irritable the longer we waited. Once we got our food,
we still weren’t offered more coffee and it wasn’t until
I called him over that our server finally refilled our
mugs.
LLBO licensed
While I definitely could have used a drink to go with
the shade I was being served, Aunties and Uncles
doesn’t serve alcohol so I was shit out of luck.
The Food
The menu was more lunch than brunch, made up of
a few traditional breakfast choices and a number of
sandwiches. My BC was disappointed that, though
Aunties and Uncles has a standard breakfast – eggs
with your choice of any three of ten options including toast, bacon, fruit, and home fries – you can only
» see jurisfoodence, page 16