Eating With Baby: Terroni, Balmoral location.

I used to love Terroni prior to the arrival of the Bundle of Joy (BoJ). I would go to the Queen Street location often with my Significant Other and gleefully dig into my gnocchi and warm chocolate lava cake without a thought about the cramped conditions. It was bliss!

But then BoJ came around and the Queen Street location suddenly became inaccessible. The quaint crowdedness was now an impenetrable maze that could not be navigated with either a stroller or a baby car seat in tow. No, it was definitely not a place for aging hipsters who wanted to initialize their offspring to the world of pretentiousness.

That said, I still wanted my gnocchi, dammit, so one lunch time I contrived to meet a fellow be-babied friend at the Balmoral location. The Balmoral location seemed way more laid back and family friendly. It seemed like it was more of a neghbourhood resto than a hipster hangout. Also: the mommy-and-baby forums all said it was baby friendly. I really should have thought twice when it came so highly recommended.

So off we went to Terroni Balmoral. The first clue that this would not be good was that there was no automatic door opener for the front door. Let me tells ya that navigating the narrow doorway by myself with a stroller was interesting. What was even more interesting was how the staff just stared at me do so (on my way in AND on my way out). Thanks for helping, guys!

My dining companion had arrived earlier. She had fought with the staff to get a seat that wasn't right next to the door. Apparently the seat right next to the door was "the only one that could accommodate strollers". Pshaw! We were seated elsewhere and a second stroller party got seated there. (Food for thought: If a third stroller party had arrived, what would they have done?) Because we weren't seated at the Stroller Table, though, the staff asked us if they could take our strollers and "put them in the back". Yes, please, take our $300 strollers and place them where we can't see them, especially since I'm sure you're not be responsible for lost or stolen items.

Thankfully we insisted to keep the stroller with us because we needed some surface on which to change the babies -- because their bizarre floor-to-ceiling-mirrored bathrooms did not have anything that could have been used for this purpose.

*sigh*

The food was good, but I won't be going there again. I would love to say that I won't be going there again til I can find a sitter for BoJ, but given their snooty attitudes, it would be hard for me to justify giving my business to such an unapologetically inaccessible restaurant.

Ciao Terroni! I'll miss your gnocchi.

Terroni is located in Toronto.