Borrel - Toronto

The taste of the food was lacking. As an Indonesian, I feel that their dishes need more spices. The gado-gado could really use more sauce on the salad. The nasi goreng had a strange flavor. If I hadn't asked for extra sambal to mix in with the rice, I probably wouldn't have been able to finish the meal. Also, please don't include the achar with the nasi goreng; it didn't complement the dish. Considering the portion size of the gado-gado, it felt a bit small for the price. And the nasi goreng, which only came with a sunny-side-up egg, was a bit overpriced.

We had a wonderful meal for three adults. The atmosphere was fantastic, and the service was excellent.

After six long years without enjoying Dutch cuisine, I came across Borrel during my visit to Toronto a few weeks ago, and it was a delightful experience! The food was exceptional, and the staff were incredibly friendly. It's definitely a must-visit if you're in the area!

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 Bitterballen.

A cozy restaurant with a good selection of Indonesian and Dutch dishes, friendly staff.