Posted by Rod Weatherbie in pubs and bars, restaurant review on August 29, 2008 at 3:49 pm

Cornerstone
537 College street
647-430-7111
Lunch for two, with all taxes, tip and beer: $42

Last Friday, being one of the hotter days this summer (finally), was a perfect day for a light lunch. I had heard from reliable sources that a new pub on College served a decent ploughman’s lunch with stilton and Branston pickle.

Not much to build a review on but as it happened the recent listeria outbreak put a temporary stop to such things as ploughman’s lunches. (As an aside, years ago one of my favourite Halifax pubs had to change the name of the familiar plate of cheese, meat, pickles and bread under threat of a student boycott of the premises. I refused to order the “ploughperson’s lunch” on the grounds that such gender neutrality is only for university students and old Marxists).

Despite the provisional withdrawal of the desired cold plate I carried on.

The Cornerstone has a great opportunity to build a following out of all the condo dwellers on College from its vantage point on the corner of Euclid. It’s a nice airy room with large open windows facing College and a well-placed patio on the Euclid side.

My server Dana was very attentive (it was a slow lunch for some reason, maybe everybody headed to the cottage early) and friendly without being overly familiar.

The menu is very simple: a page of pub food, a page of salads and light fare, and a page of more substantial dinners. Just three small pages. More pubs should follow this lead. There is something disconcerting about a six page menu with all the foods of the world on it. This one has the requisite sandwiches, burgers, and a couple of curries - pretty basic stuff.

The one oddity is the Irish Nachos ($9). I had heard about this from a couple of friends but they hadn’t ordered it themselves so couldn’t tell me more. I thought it sounded like something you might do after a night of heavy drinking. “Watch where you step, I was up all night making Irish nachos.” Another friend said maybe it’s a plate of potato chips smothered in colcannon.

It turns out it is hand cut potato chips covered with tomatoes, peppers, baked beans and a nippy cheese sauce. Not exactly a hot weather snack but better than I imagined it to be.

Another plate we tried for lunch was the calamari ($8). Squid is a dish that can be screwed up in a multitude of ways but here it was done with a minimum of fuss; a light in-house batter with the ubiquitous seafood sauce on the side, cooked correctly, not rubbery. There were tentacles on the plate which makes it look less likely that it came out of a bag of pre-battered rings.

There was also a roast beef sandwich with French fries ($11). The fries were fries, fat ones perfect for soaking up malt vinegar. The sandwich itself was a little difficult to eat if not tasty. The kitchen roasts its own beef and then slices it for sandwiches. It tasted appropriately roasted and rich, like Mum made, but also as tough as shoe leather, like Mum made. I resorted to eating it with a knife and fork which of course defeats the whole purpose of a sandwich. Despite its toughness it had a deep meaty flavour and was garnished with cheese, horseradish, and pickles. I wouldn’t recommend anyone with braces order it, but if you don’t mind chewing it’s for you.

The Cornerstone has been open for less than three months so some of the kinks are being worked out. They don’t yet have a dessert menu, but do offer desserts, although they seemed to have gone the way of the ploughman’s on my visit. They have a modest selection of single malts and a number of beers on tap. They also serve a brunch on weekends.

Now if only I could come up with a clever closing comment about Irish nachos.

Rod Weatherbie is a Toronto-based journalist. He is also partly responsible for Gadzooks! an online arts zine.