JOEY at the Eaton Centre is a sleek and centrally located restaurant. Its proximity to the glitz of Yonge-Dundas Square makes it a tasteful downtown treat. Located steps away from the hustle and bustle of the busiest shopping center in Toronto, JOEY is nestled cozily into the mammoth hub of commerce. The accessibility is excellent and the respite from your long day is felt immediately upon stepping inside the large, dim hall.
The restaurant provides a variety of seating areas to fit your pleasure, or convenience. Upstairs stands a small deck for slightly elevated dining, surrounded at the base with booths and tables, all circling the centrally located bar. Through a pair of cool sliding glass doors sits the ‘outside’ covered patio area. Being able to enjoy a gentle summer breeze through the opened window coverings elevates the experience, and although downtown Toronto’s busyness sometimes makes itself apparent through noise pollution, Dundas Street is surprisingly quaint through the glassless portals.
The seating itself is quite comfortable, with the vinyl booths presenting a comfortable nest to sit back and enjoy the evening. The black-on-wood presentation of the entire establishment fits in well with the dim, candle-accentuated, lighting, presenting a classy vibe. The numerous TVs dotted along the entire venue are helpfully jarring at killing time through whatever sport is currently being fretted over. JOEY seems to cater carefully to either stream; those appreciative of ambiance, and those looking to fill up with food and enjoy the time doing it.
To ensure you enjoy your time is the wealth of staff dedicated to providing you with the ‘JOEY experience.’ The wait staff and hosts are attentive and friendly, eager to ask you about your day and encourage whatever you answer you give. The meal is accompanied with various other questions, some necessary to the ‘meal experience’, others not as much. Regardless, it is always better to be watched by a caring waiter, than an apathetic one. Questions were promptly answered, requests were always answered in the affirmative, and punctuality left little more to be desired.
And the food is worth it too. The relatively expansive menu hosts a variety of options, all exactly what you expect them to be, and satisfyingly delicious to match. The dipping appetizers offer statically similar, yet crunchily addictive plates of nachos and sauce. There’s the salad with assorted nuts, fruit and goat cheese, confidently netting you your required greenery for the day. The thick, juicy hamburger comes accompanied with equally succulent mushrooms, rewarding you with the reminder of exactly what a hamburger tastes like. The steak is wonderfully bloody, with a rich, melt-in-the-mouth texture. Nothing at JOEY will disappoint, but in that vein, nothing will surprise you. But who wants to be surprised? To some, the phrase ‘surprise meal’ consists of nothing but ‘worst nightmare.’ JOEY will not expand your palette to foreign taste, or gauchely exquisite cuisine, but it will always deliver exactly what you want to eat, in a quaintly upscale environment, with friendly, attentive service. The dessert is exquisite too.
To read what my dinner date, Julia, had to say about JOEY, check out her “She Said” segment of the review.
To find out more about the menu and the closest JOEY location to you, check out their website.
