Borrel — Restaurant in Toronto

Emailed ahead to reserve for two on a Friday, and heard back promptly that they were wide open - great to hear as the last time we had tried to get in (on St.Patty's day) they were full up.

The atmosphere was really great - the small resto is packed with Dutch memorabilia and iconography, with the highlight for me being a painted mural in one of the washrooms downstairs. The walls upstairs are covered in photos, newspaper clippings and other Dutch artifacts, and it all comes together really nicely.

Service was great - and our server was happy to offer recommendations, info on portions etc. We felt really well taken care of throughout the meal, and will be back to try more stuff on this point alone.

I'll cover drinks before food. My partner had a couple of different cocktails...their take on a Negroni, and a cocktail called (English translation) The Orange Soldier. Both were described as excellent. I had a couple of pints of an Oast cherry wheat beer. Oast is one of my favourite breweries, so very happy to have them represented on the menu - it was really, really good and paired nicely with the food we ordered.

We would describe the food as "inconsistent". Not disappointing, but a couple of dishes felt frustratingly close to excellent if they were tweaked a little. We started with the Bitterballen, split between beef and their vegan versions. These were the highlight of the meal, and were close to perfectly paired with a punchy horseradish mustard sauce.

After the Bitterballen we had their "war fries" which was French fries served with peanut sauce and mayo. Here, all the pieces tasted good, but we felt like the portion size was lacking, and the sauce portion was weirdly stingy - like, if they had beefed it up a little and poured a healthier portion of sauces on top, it would have been great.

Next we had the Boerenkool as our first shared main, but slightly modified to accommodate my partner who is vegetarian. The sausage was served to me separately, and they left the lardons out of the kale mash. Even with the vegan gravy, the dish came across as pretty bland, to under seasoned. I ordered some curry ketchup to complement my sausage, which helped a little, but we can't recommend the vegetarian version of this dish. We'll come back and try it with the lardons in it's intended form.

Our second main was the nasi goreng rice, which was tasty, hearty and topped with a fried egg. The side sauces / pickles were a nice touch.

Finally, we tried an order of fried cheese. While nicely crispy on the outside, runny in the center, we felt it was pretty bland, and could have really, really benefited from a side sauce of some kind. We've seen examples of the dish that are served with chili sauce etc., and while we're not experts, felt that this dish could be simply elevated with some sauce.

So, a mixed experience, but we're going to make sure to give it another go and try some more things off the menu. Whatever you order I'm sure it will be a great experience...and definitely try the...

I came here once for genever, once for rijsttafel, and finally here just for dinner.

I really wish it was better. The flavours just don't cut it for Indonesian food. We had a lot of indo food in Amsterdam, including rijsttafel a bunch of times at various places. This was as good as the worst place we tried there. I do recall (pre-COVID) the rijsttafel here being disappointing but this city is incredibly limited for this food so I was just grateful to have it at all.

This time... as nice as the staff are, they can't make up for the poorly flavoured food. The satays were edible, but not good. Tasteless. Just some overcooked chicken skewers. The nasi goreng was bitter and bland, and the plate was just ugly and brown. Not even a cucumber for colour. And where was the egg?!

The bitterballen were actually perfect. I don't know why I ordered them though because I didn't really get the hype about them in Netherlands, so I don't know why I thought that would change. I'll say Borrel's are almost identical to the ones we had in The Hague. So, they do succeed there. Very authentic.

The fries were just terrible. They tasted and felt like they had been fried, cooled, and refried about 10 times and then sat out all night under the headlamp. Rock hard and full of grease. And didn't even taste good. We had loads of Dutch fries in our visits and to say these are anything like the ones there is not even reasonable. I don't really know what to make of it if they can't make good fries...

It's hard to find good Indo/Malay food in Toronto, so I appreciate Borrel trying by doing not only the white Dutch food but also the Netherlands great Indonesian cuisine culture. I just think there are other restaurants in Toronto that do Indo flavours so much better.

Also, if you haven't had genever... do it when you're here. It is almost impossible to find in Ontario, and it's not available in any LCBO or any other Toronto bar as far as I know. I have to give kudos to Borrel for going through all the trouble of bringing this spirit to us.

I think it seems like the Dutch food is generally well-done, so if I ever do return, I'll just stick to that (and genever!) and go elsewhere for...

Pretty good Dutch food, meh Indonesian food.

We came as a party of 5.

BOERENKOOL ($20): (4/5) Larger portion than I expected. The sausage was HUGE, super juicy but didnt taste greasy, and well-seasoned. The kale & potato mash was a little bland but the bacon bits saved it. The gravy made it less dry but was also a little bland.

SNERT ($20): (4.2/5) Friend's order but I tried a bit of it. Looks small but very filling cos the soup is thick. Good flavour and generous with the bacon, sausages, etc.

LEKKERBEK 'N' CHIPS ($20): (idk/5) Only tried a little of this one, the fish was okay. Friend said it was a 3.5/5 for him.

BAMI SPECIAAL ($21): (3.7/5) Based on my Indonesian tongue, the babi kecap in it was sweet enough & very soft, just wish the rest of the bakmie was as sweet. They got the smokiness just right tho! Portion was kinda small.

NASI GORENG ($21): (bad/5) Portion was super small for this price, esp when it barely had any protein in it, just an egg. My friend's order and I didn't bother trying cos she was so disappointed. Genuinely, how do u fk up nasi goreng??? At least everything else was decent.

SPEKKOEK - THOUSAND LAYER CAKE ($5): (5/5) Super small and pricey (but don't complain cos thts just how it always is, it's VERY tedious to make). Friend said it tasted good--exactly like the one you'd get in Indo.

If I come again, I'll only come for the Dutch food. Ambience was nice, good decor! I wanna come back n try the...