Mercer Kitchen | Beer Hall — Restaurant in Stratford

Ok. So here's the thing. The service at this place is phenomenal. Our server was genuinely one of the kindest and most caring servers I have experienced in my entire life, so they alone warrant two stars.

But what happened to the other three stars that this place might have gotten? Well, between 1) the disappointing food, 2) the slow kitchen, and 3) the high price point, I can think of few restaurants which have felt like a greater waste of time, money, and stomach space than this one. Let's unpack each of these points.

Starting with the food, our table ordered the Sweetbreads, the Maki, the Pickerel Sandwich, the Duck Confit Dumplings, the Bento Box, the Spicy Thai Noodles, and the Chicken Bowl. The sweetbreads, maki, and chicken bowl were all passable (although not anywhere near worth what they cost), but the pickerel sandwich, spicy Thai noodles, and bento box were all severely lacking in flavour. I have genuinely had more flavourful versions of each of these dishes in high school cafeterias for 1/10th of the price. And the duck confit dumplings; don't get me started. What an absolute travesty: dry, tasteless, burnt, and all-around lame.

As to the slow kitchen, while I understand that many kitchens are understaffed and they can only move so quickly, when the quality of the food is as poor as it was, it makes one feel irritated about how long it took to make. This irritation was also compounded by the fact that it took what seemed like 30+ minutes for our appetizers to come out, but then like 5+ minutes after that for our mains to come out. Generally speaking, when a menu sets out a separate appetizer section, when ordered, they are supposed to come out more quickly than the mains so as to tide over the patrons, but this was not accomplished. Again, these are pretty nit-picky things to say, but the food being generally bad soured the whole experience.

Then moving on to the price of everything, with the tip, the meal for our party of 4 cost around $187. That is about $50 a person. For that price, the food should really be top notch, or at least cooked with enough heart to provide a satisfying experience, but, as is clear by this point, this did not happen. And again, this really would not be an issue if the food was worth the price in the first place.

This all being said, I hope management looks over my Karen-esque rant, and uses it as an opportunity to think critically about the things I am saying. I hope they take what I have said to heart, and seriously look into how they can improve how they run their kitchen. I hope they hire more chefs to make sure that food comes out more quickly, and pay more attention to the recipes they are using for their dishes, because with some improvements to their recipes, and greater attention paid to their preparation, this place could be as great as my party was expecting it to be. Above all, however, I hope they pay their servers twice as much as they do currently; they...

This review is meant for the restaurant only.

We went during a rainy day after seeing great reviews about it.

We tried an appetiser the crispy sushi rolls, and the buttermilk fried chicken people have been mentioning in the reviews.

Taste wise they are both pretty decent, but downside is that most food are on heavier seasonings. (The table next to us actually returned the bowl of fries because it was too salty). And they have this togarashi aioli that they used is most the dishes. Don’t get me wrong, the aioli is good, just hoping for something different would be nice.

Price wise, personally I think it’s a little higher, 2 pieces of chicken was $27, and we were given a thigh and a relatively small drumstick. The sushi rolls was $16 for 6 pieces of sushi.

Also two incidents during our meal that made the experience less pleasant: When we first approached the host to ask for a table, were told there was only one table available outside under the awning which she described as it’s dry. So we said okay.

When we got to the table, the table and one of the chairs were wet. The host helped wiped the table dry for us then walked away without noticing that the other chair is also completely wet and no one can sit. So we had to went back to get her attention to help wipe the chair. When she came back second time, she literally just wiped the chair dry and walked away, without saying anything.

What I don’t like here is that, you can’t tell the customers the table is dry when you don’t know it’s actually dry. When it’s actually wet, you wiped one thing walked away and then came back wiped another thing, said absolutely nothing? Hmm can you imagine from being told it’s dry to having to get her wipe table and chair in two separate times?

Then it was too cold and wet outside we decided to leave the restaurant, then they said there is a table inside now, we then changed inside.

When its near the end of our meal, somehow the same host decided to come ask if she can clear the plates with food. So we said we were still working on it. On that, I wish she also noticed the empty glass and got us water. It’s like she noticed the plates with food to clear but not the empty glasses to fill water?

There is definitely room for improvement for the host. Our server was great. Food is decent. Would we go back? Not too...

Overall I think this is an “okay” restaurant in terms of the staff and the space but when it comes to the food and dining experience it was sub-par. I understand it’s a fusion menu so I won’t deduct points for lack of authenticity. The maki roll was delicious, probably the best part of the meal, though the waiter who served it called it “sushi”, it’s not sushi. The fried dumplings had very little filling and was mostly wrappers and sauce. The cold soba noodles and dashi soup was unsatisfactory. The noodles were overcooked and a mess in the bowl (with unnecessary ice cubes), the soup had no umami and was flavoured with soy sauce, and I was not provided a soup spoon, I drank the soup the Japanese way (but couldn’t drink much of it because of the poor taste). We were provided take-out style throwaway chopsticks in a restaurant that served Asian dishes. That’s akin to receiving picnic style plastic cutlery at a steakhouse. Actual chopsticks should have been provided. The bento box was decent, karaage chicken was good, but over priced for what it is. The red paint of the bento box was already scraped off the surface, this was not only unsightly but also raised concerns about food safety. The miso soup had double the miso so it was overly salty. We were provided teaspoons to drink this soup, the kind you use to stir your coffee. For the high-walled shape of the bowl this type of spoon is inadequate. The fried rice balls had a very hard shell making them difficult to bite into (and difficult to eat using the short and thin take-out chopsticks), though the pickled condiments were yummy and I found this dish to be decent. It’d be great if the rice balls weren’t fried so crispy.

If you’re looking for Japanese food, or Korean food, I would not recommend this restaurant. If you’re looking for a creative fusion experience, I still would not recommend this place.

The service was friendly and attentive. No complaints with our waitress, it’s not her fault the restaurant was setup this way.

We only stopped by for lunch so that’s all I’ll comment on. No comments about the...