Pappas Grill, Toronto

I was not on my VT toes on this first VT meeting. I admit to being a bit nervous (which quickly went away!) and it caused me to totally forget about taking exterior pictures of Pappas Grill. I can easily say that this restaurant was very friendly and a perfect place to begin a memorable weekend!

At first, the staff seemed to be as overcome with us as we were with each other, but both of us found our stride and soon all was well in tune. We dined, talked, laughed, danced (well, some danced) and mingled in the downstairs area. As the restrooms were also located on this level, I imagine that we got more than the usual look of curiosity from other patrons, but that's ok! It would be hard not to see the friendliness & genuine pleasure of being together that this VT group created.

Cudos to Pappas Grill and the VT ladies that brought us here!

Favorite Dish: Now I know why VT Ambassador Stephanie gave us VT notebooks! To make notes, maybe? I'm not sure, but think I had Soulvaki of some sort as my meal but I DO remember having no complaints and the prices here were very reasonable. So, I will leave it up to other VT members in attendance to provide more details. Surely someone out of 40 people can do a much better job than me on restaurant tips!

This was the sight of the VT meet's first dinner. It's located in Greektown and we had a room downstairs. To be honest, there was so much commotion with so many people meeting for the first time, it's a wonder we ever got a chance to eat. But eat we did, and people danced and some tried to bribe free drinks from the waiter with kisses. Pappas was a great time.

Favorite Dish: I had a pizza with feta, marinated artichokes and tomato. mmm, it was delicious!

The restaurant has bi-level dining rooms and for our recent VT Meeting we were given the downstairs dining room. This was excellent because it had a bar and accomodated the noisy VT crowd. I enjoyed the facilities and the staff was most accomodating, the only problem was there were not enough servers for the large party of 30+ poeple. They only had one waiter for the entire party. This poor guy tried valiantly to keep up but unfortunately through no fault of his own, he failed miserably. Food orders were sporadic and none of us seemed to eat at the same time. I had a personal pizza which was good but I know that my friends ordered chicken and it was not palatable at all!

Favorite Dish: The only dish I tried was the Margharita pizza, the crust was good not chewy and the tomatoes and cheese were very good.

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Our Friday night VT dinner-meeting was held at PAPPAS GRILL in Greektown. We had the whole downstairs to ourselves. Good thing, as we did get a little rowdy later. Just good, clean fun. There was a lot of picture-taking and VT'ers getting to know other VT'ers.

Favorite Dish: Unfortunately, I did not enjoy my meal. I ordered a half roasted chicken @ $12.95. The chicken was greasy and tasteless and I only took a few bites out of it and left the rest on my plate. Along with the chicken was a roasted potato and very dry white rice.

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This is the restaurant chosen for the dinner on the first night of the 2005 Toronto VT Meeting. I enjoyed it a lot. I thought the food, especially the tarmasalata, was quite good - not the very best Greek food I've ever had - but quite good. Some felt that the service was slow. But with only 1 waiter assigned to our large group, I don't think this would be the same ratio if one were normally eating here.

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The Toronto 2005 VT Meeting was started off by dinner here at Pappa's Grill, out on The Danforth. It was a great choice - thanks Laura (hayward68)! - and the restaurant gave us the downstairs area, which was perfect for us. The staff treated us well and it made for a good evening. The location was easy to get to - exactly one block east of the Chester subway station.
A party like that made it difficult to really get a feel of the "normal" ambiance of the restaurant. However, a restaurant that encourages its patrons to enjoy themselves has a lot going for it! The menu was great, covered not just Greek cuisine, but pretty much had something for every taste, including some children's selections too. A pretty good wine selection too, it seemed - and they served Guinness!
One comment is that the washrooms are downstairs so it isn't disabled-friendly, unless there is some facilities on the street level for the disabled. Also, obviously, as they let our group have the lower level, that would not be suitable for those unable to handle stairs.
Another interesting thing was that amongst the Greek decor, there were a lot of Canadiana artwork - Group of Seven, Sketch of Old Town... Lovely but not exactly Greek!!!

Favorite Dish: I had a taste of Murra (Robert)'s shrimp..bruchetta mix is about the best way to describe it. It was delicious and went well with the bread that was on the table.
The pizza was delicious. Lots of cheese, which pleased this cheese-aholic no end. It was a lot of pizza, it seemed to me, for an individual serving, however, when you are hungry it was pretty easy to get it all down! The crust was nice and thin, and just the right crispiness. I would highly recommend the pizza to anyone. However, I think perhaps I would order it with another dish and share with another person.

Pappas offers a combination Greek and Italian menu with a cool interior. They have a decent wine list that is quite reasonably priced.

Favorite Dish: PIKILIA is the sampler of appetizer dips. The best of the dips is the scorthalia which is a garlic potato deal. They have a decent selection of vegetarian items (try the "heart and soul" pizza). They also have great breakfast/brunch.