Corey Mintz to Toronto’s Guu fans: chill out
Corey Mintz thinks Torontonians need to get a grip—at least on our obsession with Guu, the city’s offshoot of the Vancouver-based izakaya chain that has everyone from Ryerson students to West Coast defectees lining up for hours to get a seat.
Although the Toronto Star food writer is a fan of Guu’s Japanese pub grub (fried, salty fare that’s perfect with beer), he laments that we have not been “cool” about Guu’s arrival. “We have lined up, kvetch-blogged and snapped iPhone pictures, capturing all the lustre of Nick Nolte’s mug shot… In short, we have spazzed out over Guu.”
Pointing to comments on this blog by one unhappy customer who, after being forced out by management for not adhering to Guu’s strict two-hour seating policy, got into a fight with another customer, Mintz writes, “Japanese people should be laughing at us. Imagine queuing for hours and punting a stranger in the schnutz because a Finn McCool’s opened in Tokyo.”
While we hope Mintz isn’t suggesting Toronto’s best pub export is Finn McCool’s, we think the problem with Guu isn’t so much our lack of cool but rather a lack of supply. Maybe if more watering holes in Toronto offered delicious salmon natto yukke and reasonably priced Sapporo (instead of bland shepherd’s pie and overpriced Guinness), we wouldn’t all be jamming Guu’s door.
• Japanese comic ode to food deserves a suitable farewell [Toronto Star]
