There aren’t enough holidays where we can eat turkey in my opinion. The stretch between Christmas and Easter (do people eat turkey at Easter?) is too long, and we should start eating turkey for lesser celebrated holidays, like Valentine’s Day o r St. Patrick’s. I’m sure the turkeys would appreciate not being a two or three time a year food, and then we get turkey every month! Who’s with me? Turkey lovers unite!
... hello?
Ok. So while I wait for the movement to really catch on and take flight, I will take comfort in turkey’s little brother, the roast chicken. See, this is why I can’t possibly be the only person who wants turkey all the time, because any time I try to go to Swiss Chalet when the chicken craving hits, there’s always a line up to wait for a table, and it’s always ridiculously busy...which was exactly the case the last time we went to the Appleby Line location in Burlington. The restaurant has a take-out counter, and it’s attached to a Harvey’s in a strip mall plaza, so the parking is always really sparse. We were lucky and just as we were pulling into the parking lot, a car was leaving and we got a great spot by the door. (Doesn’t that just make your day? I love when that happens.)
We sat on the bench in the lobby and waited for a good 15 minutes or so before we finally got a table. The restaurant was completely full, and there were servers running back and forth in every direction. We were lucky to get a booth in the back corner and took a few minutes to look over the menu and take in our surroundings. The restaurant itself is warm and cozy with dim, but not dark, lighting and neutral colours. There are a lot of tables and booths and if it’s busy, you can certainly hear the conversations at the table next to you because they’re so close.
Our server was attentive even though his section was completely full, and I was impressed with his efficiency. (Side note: he looked like Alan Rickman, and it made me want to ask him what Hogwarts was really like in person.) He brought us our drinks and took our order without making us feel rushed even though we had questions about a few of the items. Overall, I was very impressed with the service we received.
We started with the Cheese Perogies ($6) which were seven deep fried potato and cheese filled dumplings. They were sprinkled with paprika, which did nothing to help the fact that they were bland and disappointing. The dough was too thick and the filling tasted like plain mashed potatoes. The menu stated it was served with Cajun sauce, but it tasted and looked like sour cream mixed with paprika. I would take a pass on these if I was looking for an appetizer again.
There is a special on right now called the Winter Warm Up ($14) which is a half chicken dinner with a soup. The soup is comfort food to the max, with its large chunks of chicken, soft pasta and vegetables. The broth is well seasoned and it’s the kind of chicken soup that puts canned soup to shame. The roast chicken was juicy and flavourful and fell off of the bone. As a side, the restaurant was offering spicy fries, which we decided to try upon the recommendation of the server. I think they were confusing spicy with salty, because these were the saltiest fries we had ever tasted. If you look at the picture you can see the flecks of seasoning on the fries – that was pure salt. It was so salty we actually couldn’t eat it and had to send it back for regular fries. The server was apologetic that he had recommended them, but was more than happy to bring us fresh, hot, regular fries.
The other promotion on right now is the Chicken and Shrimp ($12) combo which is a quarter chicken with five garlic shrimp and rice pilaf. The shrimp were described as sautéed with garlic, tomatoes and green onion but there were neither tomatoes nor green onions on my plate. There was a slight hint of garlic, but it was all overwhelmed by the oil from the rice pilaf and the shrimp. My shrimp and rice were literally shiny due to the amount of oil used, and that made it hard to eat. The chicken was as delicious as the chicken in the other dish, and I enjoyed it very much.
Swiss Chalet is a good restaurant to go to if you are looking for comfort food at reasonable prices. The service is generally good from what I have experienced, and the wait time for food is average. The specials they offer seem to be hit or miss, but if you stick with the classics, they are generally your safest and most delicious bets.
1 comments:
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