Restaurant Review-Pacific Junction Hotel

This will serve as my first official restaurant review!  

The Place- Pacific Junction Hotel-234 King Street E.
The Style-Casual, small plate bar food, art deco explosion
The Rating-2.5/5



















The Review:

We were wandering down King street recently, attempting to find this elusive all you can eat sushi place that we can never seem to find.  After about a half hour of searching, we decided upon a sassy, pseudo dive bar called Betty's. Betty's was fun, relatively tasty and they had some ridiculous micro breweries on tap.  On our way out, I noticed a spot right next door.  There was no menu on the window, but it looked right bizarre, and had a donkey hanging down, so I took a mental note.  A few days later we decided to give it a go.  The place is called Pacific Junction Hotel and it's owned by the same folks who own Betty's.  Upon entering PJH you will find a spatter of colour, funk and pink flamingos-think Miami 80's throw up.  The wait staff are attractive and uber hip, donning their own fedoras and kicks. It felt right...I'm a big fan of loud obnoxious spaces with mismatched shit strewn about, and the crowd was just the perfect dash of pretension I can deal with.  I was pretty damn excited.  We took a seat and browsed through the menu delicately glued to a Scientific American magazine, which appears to be an 80's science magazine....odd for the sake of being odd?
Things went a little down hill from here.

We were informed the food was tapas or small plate style.  I'm a huge fan of tapas style, sharing and loving and living and all that jazz, but my girlfriend wasn't eating, and the prices were a little out of whack, so it seemed redundant.   I then did what I always do at a restaurant;  I ordered a beer.  The selection was minimal (only about five options) compared to the fantastic tap selection next door at Betty's, I was a slightly disappointed.  They had a beer I had never heard of, titled "ass ale," I was intrigued, I like the word ass and the word ale.  Turns out "ass ale" is "Big Wheel"  am I missing something here?  I was noticing a trend of obscurity without any reasoning.  Nevertheless I browsed the cheeky menu which consists of twisty bar favs. After a good look, I decided on two food items;  Landrys Poppers, which are jalapeño poppers wrapped in pancetta, and Mojito Shrimp.  The prices were high, at $10 for each dish (note these were two of the cheapest items on the menu)

The menu and beer in a mason jar

 The food arrived quickly and they weren't lying when they said "small plate."  Everything was situated nicely and I was excited to get busy.  The poppers were pretty decent, the pancetta added a crispy, salty kick, with a subtle bite at the end from the jalapeño  and gooey cheese in the middle.  A clever twist on a pub classic.  The shrimp were not so impressive.  They claimed to be mojito shrimp-a mojito consists of rum,mint and lime-my dish was served with a lemon wedge.  I tasted no mint, they were unnecessarily salty and generally bland.  Again at $10 a pop for about six medium sized shrimp, I was expecting a little more.  I finished everything in roughly seven minutes and was far from satisfied.  We promptly paid the bill and peaced out.

My overall conclusion of Pacific Junction Hotel:  

I enjoyed the concept at hand, but definitely feel their trying a tad too hard.  Although I didn't sample a lot of the food, I wasn't blown away by my choices and the portion sizes are significantly small for the price.  The drink selection had it's perks but was not overly impressive.  The service was friendly, fast and the atmosphere is pretty damn fun.  I would certainly go back with a group of friends to chow down on the overpriced plates and soak up the good vibes, but would never return expecting a culinary revelation.

Cheers.