Reviewing Whatever

Smokeless Joe’s, bar and restaurant
125 John St.
Toronto, Ontario

You should know
So, more adventures from my trip to Toronto. Our friends picked this place out, and Chris and I were happy to give it a try. There is a bar near Chris that serves beers from all over the world, so he likes variety in a bar.

So?
They didn’t have the first beer I wanted – a maple brown. I’m not a big beer drinker, but I like honey browns, so since I was in Canada, it seemed appropriate to try a maple brown. No such luck. So I had to think fast, and I ordered a Fruli. It was excellent – a strawberry-flavored beer – but it was too small and too weak for the price.

My second drink was a Blackthorn apple cider. It, too, was very good, but a better deal. It came in a can, rather than in a bottle or from the tap, but it tasted great – and was about double both the strength and the size of the Fruli.

Chris, who had tried Leffe Brune in Belgium while on study-abroad, always looks for it when he’s in bars with large, international beer lists. Very few places in the States have it on tap; not many have it at all, in fact. Smokeless Joe’s didn’t have it on tap, but they had plenty of bottles stored in their giant fridge.

No one had anything to eat, so I can’t vouch for the menu, but the oysters certainly looked good, and smelled wonderful. They had a good deal on them, as well. If I'm ever back, I'll definitely have to give them a try.

And, true to the name, the bar was smoke-free. Chris is used to that, since all bars are smoke-free in New York, but in Philadelphia, that’s not the case, so I could really appreciate it.

Rating
Go in prepared
When you’re looking the beer list over, have a second and maybe even a third choice in mind. They don’t always have everything on the list, and if you’re counting on one drink in particular, you might be put on the spot and scrambling to order if they don’t have what you want.

Also, watch your bill. Chris and I got out ok, but our friends spent over C$50 in beer alone. On the plus side, my one friend, who collects pretentious beer bottles, did very nicely for himself.

The rest of the internet
The Bar Towel does a thorough review of the bar.
A profile at BarMeister.com.
Mio at BlogTo was impressed.