Montreal: Oro Toro Restaurant Review (Lunch Menu)

Oro Toro is a fairly new restaurant that's at the end of a strip mall...It's kind of in the middle of nowhere and easy to miss...That's probably why they've been advertising pretty heavily for a restaurant (as I've seen them sponsoring news segments on television and on the radio as well). It's kind of like Baton Rouge, but with much more variety and not as expensive (probably since it's not part of a chain). It's a pretty nice looking place, won't break your wallet (ie. at lunchtime, otherwise it's somewhat pricey) and you can get a pretty good lunch out of it these days.

If you've been there during the first six months that they were open you probably didn't like it...The service was slow all-round, no lunch menu at all (important for lunch people like me) and food took a long time to get out (I mean really slow, like no where else I've been to).

More recently, having been there for lunch a few times, I feel that I can recommend it (even with their recent cut backs). I've tried their chicken, braised beef (really tender), ribs (which are like Baton Rouge ribs) all off their new lunch menu. However, they've been tweaking their lunch menu lately to keeps costs down I imagine. In the early days, bread variety used to be 'Wow' (four different kinds of bread), and dessert used to be top notch (gone are the thin slices of cheesecake, now just a square of regular cake). The bread cut backs are fine, but why the dessert too? It makes the lunch experience, end on a weaker note in my opinion. Hopefully, they don't start cutting back elsewhere or this review will be outdated...
 
Dec. 14, 2011 Update: Went there again and the lunch menu has changed once more (lemon chicken, and the braised beef are off the lunch menu). Luckily the baby back ribs are still there, and still a good choice (although baked potatoes are now off too). Personally, I'd go for the ribs over the flat bread or sandwich lunch options.

It's where the Pier1 Imports store used to be...

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