Mother Tongue — Restaurant in Toronto

I was really looking forward to trying this place for summerlicious on a Thursday evening. I had seen great reviews. However, our experience was completely different. They have a small patio at the front, a bar area inside, then more of a restaurant room in the back, and a cocktail place downstairs. That restaurant room in the back is crazy loud. The music is very loud so every body has to speak loud and the noise level is not enjoyable. It was hard to hear even the waitress. We ordered some drinks and our food. I had the Berde beauty. I loved that they have mocktails on their menu. I also love that they have pandan flavor. My cocktail was not bad but it was too sweet even though I love sweet things so much. Maybe the balance was off. We waited for our food for the longest time ever, 1 hour and 45 minutes. We saw the people at the table next to us who had arrived way after us get their appetizer. So we ask the staff if they can check on our food. It’s not normal. They come back a while later with the check. The noise level issue… We said that we are hungry and want our food, we had not asked for the check. Finally, they come with the food BUT they serve the main dish first. That’s ok cause we’re so hungry. Then when I’m not even done eating my main dish, they bring the appetizers. It has never happened to me in my life. And the tables are so small that there is no space to leave a water bottle on it and you have to rely on staff to refill your water glass. We had the Korean Beef Short Rib which was good as the meat fell off the bone, and the Hoisin Duck Confit which was an interesting mix of French style duck confit and pekin duck. It was not bad but we thought that for both dishes, they could serve more sides. The mini salad and cucumber portion on my plate was disappointing. We got Steelhead Trout Crudo and Longganisa Bola Bola. The longganisa is served in the shape of a meatball. I am aware that there are quite some fatty elements to Filipino cuisine but inside the balls were a lot of big chunks of fat. It’s too much fat to my liking and maybe it’s not for everyone. Then we got our desserts. The Lemongrass Crème Brûlée was good. I liked that there is a twist with the flavor. However, when you eat it with the sugary top layer, the lemongrass flavor goes unnoticed. The Peach Mango Pearls was enjoyable. The staff did apologize multiple times and said there had been a mix up which caused this unpleasant experience. They did end up comping our food, which we appreciated and even left a tip on what the total value would have been. Hence the 2 star rating. However, I don’t think I would come back. I feel that for the price of the dishes, you can have better value for your money and better...

I was looking forward to this place, but unfortunately it wasn’t a great experience and I’ll never come again nor recommend this place to anyone.

I had made a reservation for 2 a few weeks back .When we entered, we were told our table wasn’t ready yet and that we had to wait a few minutes for our table. Not a problem, but then we seemed to wait for a while at the entrance. Then the hostess asked if we would like to sit downstairs in their “speakeasy” type bar and have a meal there. Since it was our first time there, we said sure, it didn’t matter where we sat even though our reservation was at the lobby bar specifically..she tried to take us through a door but then changed her mind and we went through the main area and down some stairs.

We make our way to the bar in the basement known as “Liquid Courage”. We are seated at the bar with the menus from Mother Tongue. Unbeknownst to us and clearly this hostess, Liquid Courage as it’s own menu… this was mentioned to us by the bartender… the bartender ends up gathering information for us and tells says our table will ready in 5 minutes and we can either stay or go back upstairs. my friend and I are confused at this point and wondering why we are down here in the first place if it was a totally different concept, why wasn’t that communicated with us at the beginning? Turns out the bartender never met with this hostess until today… it may have been her first day? if that is the cause, it didn’t seem like she was trained up enough or supported for a Saturday night. We decided to go back upstairs as that was where we originally made the reservation for and maybe come back down afterwards.

So that same hostess came down to bring us right back up, when I asked how one would could back to the speakeasy bar, I was give an unnecessary remark and was told to “take the stairs”.. most speakeasy type bars I’ve been to have intriguing ways to enter, so this was a fair question to ask in my opinion and kinda rude for her to answer in that manner.

We get seated and our waitress seemed cold. Didn’t greet us when she came with water… didn’t really check in throughout our meal. Food was small and overpriced. The drinks weren’t great either, way too much Citrus in drinks that it overpowered the cocktails. Overall just bad.

They clearly need to support their staff and communicate better with customers.

The only thing that was good was the service from the bartender at Liquid Courage. He seemed like a great guy and he even checked in with us when we were upstairs. It’s just too bad that our experience was just poor as a whole. Save your money and go...

Mother Tongue is an absolute must that highlights and elevates flavours of Filipino food! ❤️💙💛🤍

Walking in felt like coming home. From the earthy interior to the gentle tunes of soul, r&b, and electronic music, the ambience of the restaurant is perfect and immensely inviting.

After being warmly greeted by Spencer and Caoimhe, we ordered cocktails and their 5-course meal. At first, we thought we were going to choose which dishes to pick, and to our delightful surprise, the chefs actually made everything that was on the menu! We were so excited!!

Mango Papaya Salad 🥗 - The ratio of bagoong (shrimp paste) vinaigrette to the vegetables was great! Bagoong has a bit of a stronger flavour, but as a vinagraitte, it heightened the salad and it was so light and refreshing!

Butterfish Kinilaw 🐟 - The only way to describe this dish was the journey it took us to! It starts off tangy from the pineapple lemongrass dressing, then ends with a melt-in-your-mouth buttery taste! Yummmmmm.

Sio Bao 🐷 - If you like pork belly, you'll enjoy this! The bao was super soft, but for me, half was enough as it was a little bit fatty. The boyfriend enjoyed the rest 😌

Crispy Mapo Tofu 🌶 - One of our favourites from the menu!! 🌟 We even told our servers we could easily order plates of the mapo tofu all night and be satisfied!! It was SO. SO. good.

Duck Dumplings 🥟 - Soft and chewy dumplings! Kind of tastes like paté!

Annato Grilled Sea Bream 🐟 - The grilled fish was really tasty, and it went well with the tomato and quail eggs salad! Everything tasted very fresh. It came with a side of rice!

Bone-in Beef Short Rib 🍖 - Another one of our favourites!! 🌟 The dish says bone in, but the meat literally slipped off the bone with absolute zero effort and was packed with flavour! (Also came with a side of rice!) We were pretty full at this time, and packed it to go and savoured it for later.

Miso Sticky Toffee Pudding 🍮 - To finish, we enjoyed the dessert! It was not too sweet at all (IYKYK ❤️).

Overall, wow! What an incredible dining experience. Highly recommend coming here and maybe checking out the speakeasy downstairs afterwards! Thank you to the wonderful chefs, Francis Bermejo and Phillip Dela Cruz! 😍 We'll be back for more!

✨️ MUST TRY: Mango Papaya Salad Crispy Mapo Tofu Bone-In...