Pearl Diver

I am so behind in my blog posts that I am only now getting around to blogging about Mother's Day brunch! My husband and my sister wanted to treat my mom, my aunts, and myself to a nice Mother's Day brunch, and seafood seemed like a good bet because my family loves seafood. We opted to go downtown because we heard something about a lobster benny that sounded pretty exciting!

Restaurant: Pearl Diver
Location: Corktown
Meal: Brunch
Day: Sunday
Son's Age: 13 months

As with any Sunday brunch, it was super important for us that this restaurant took reservations, since waiting in line with a baby is never an ideal situation. They actually have a back area with two larger tables so we didn't have to sit in the middle of a crowded restaurant, which is nice.

Accessibility: ⭐⭐
This restaurant is not stroller friendly. To get to the back table, the path is quite narrow, and there is a step. Once we were there, we were given the option to park the stroller beside us or leave it at the front, and we quickly realized that leaving it next to the table would make the area very crowded. They also did not have proper high chairs, but instead had booster seats that strapped to their chairs.

This doesn't seem like an issue, except the back of the chair is curved so the strap doesn't actually go around very tightly, and the seat ended up being slightly crooked. There is an option to attach a tray table directly to the seat, but space made it very inconvenient to use. (And yes, that is my husband's wallet that my son is playing with - blah blah hygiene germs blah blah - his grandmother was present so trust me I already heard the lecture.) The washroom also does not have a change table.

The saving grace is that the toilet seat has a lid so you could still change a diaper if you needed to.

Service: ⭐⭐⭐

Service was fine, but not memorable. When we were struggling with tightening the booster seat onto the chair, no one offered to help, which is fine, but it means you can't rely on the service to make your experience of taking your baby to a restaurant easier. 

Food: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
I am so torn about how to rate the food. We started with a dozen oysters for the table.

The special was supposed to be 6 east coast and 6 west coast oysters, but given the news about contaminated west coast oysters, we asked for all 12 to be east coast, and they obliged. The oysters were delicious, as expected, served with the traditional condiments of horseradish, lemon, cocktail sauce, hot sauce, and mignonette. For my main, I went with this famous lobster benny.

Let me tell you, these home fries were mind blowing. I could have just eaten a giant portion of home fries. Seriously, these might be the best home fries I've ever had. That sounds lovely, but I found the star of the dish was just okay and not memorable. There wasn't that much lobster, and it was so light that it got lost amongst the flavours of the egg, hollandaise, and bun. My husband ordered the PD classic breakfast.

This is a typical classic with eggs, bacon, toast, home fries, and salad. Again, amazing home fries, but also surprisingly the best toast I've ever had! I don't know what it is, but it was perfectly toasted and perfectly buttered, so it was just such a standout on the plate. So, overall I'm not sure how to judge the food, because if you like toast and home fries, you seriously need to come here. The rest of the food is fine but not great, so I've decided to net this out at four stars.

Overall: ⭐⭐⭐
This place is fine to bring your baby, and the food is pretty good. If you want the best toast ever, it's worth the effort, and being able to make reservations is definitely a plus, but I think there might be other places that are more worthwhile.