Weston Rd Part 2: I May Have Cursed This Place / P&M Restaurant

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A couple weeks ago I wrote a special piece named "This Ain't a Hood - Weston Road Special" This was a defence piece about the street I live on named Weston Road defending it from spoiled ass people coming to my place and commenting on how "hood" Weston looked. Well it's been a couple weeks and there were about 3 stabbings on the very street.

One of them happened at this sketchy ass place which YOU SHOULD NEVER EVER WALK INTO. Maybe you hate your life then be my guest but still man.

"Oh Ian ! The sign says restaurant you going to do a review on that place where a guy got stabbed."

...

Nah it's cool. If the food was really good the stabber would be using the knife on the food instead of the person. Unless he's Hannibal or something like that then I really don't know what to say.

Another stabbing happened like way, way, way down the street (Weston is a pretty long street), near Eglinton, don't know all the details but hope the lad is alright.

THEN my dear friend Aaron sends me this while I'm at my internship.

Damn. Not at my building or anywhere close but still Weston. Sucks to see that.

Maybe I'm naïve person, maybe I'm just stupid enough to still believe in it. In which you ask... but why Ian? Why would you believe in that shithole Weston?

Because of this.

P&M RESTAURANT BABY!

I LOVE P&M. I don't give a crap if this review may sound bias but my God...

This place is one of those gems that just has everything going for it. I might not have been in Weston for very long but even I know this place is integral to Weston.

P&M is a Greek-Canadian restaurant that's been in Weston for over 40 f-n years. They used to be situated in this little space here. I wish I took a picture when they had all the signs on the windows thanking Weston for "40 Wonderful Years". I've been to P&M a combined 3-4 times between the old and new locations.

 The old location had the kitchen right smack dab in front of the door which was a bit crammed. The seating could fit probably only up to a max 30 people and that's really pushing it. What this meant was that the P&M was always busy particularly on weekends for breakfast when they served their Malt waffles. I've never had them (I had the regular bacon, eggs and toast last time I went for breakfast) From what I hear they were amazingly fluffy and delightful.

After years of waiting though P&M finally moved into a bigger location that just happened to be on the other side of the Asian supermarket on the same street. The small space that had a crammed kitchen and could only sit 30 people now has a state of the art kitchen and can sit a whopping 100+ people comfortably. It's amazing seeing a family restaurant progress like this and the owner family should be proud.

So after a long absence I felt for some random reason it was my duty to go back to P&M and do a review on them. Outside looked and felt like England, rainy and somewhat chilly but I braved walking 7 minutes to get to P&M and the bottom of my jeans got soaked but it's whatever.

As soon I get in the head waitress / head chef's wife greets me. She oddly remembers me even though I've only been there a handful of times. It's a nice gesture though and I place my umbrella to the side and the waiter (her son) takes me to my seat.

Nice view right? I always enjoyed seeing open kitchens like this one. There's a sort of genuine feeling to them. Funny enough one of the nicest times I've ever had with my brother is when we got baked and went to P&M for breakfast. He loves to cook so when he saw the open kitchen he was explaining a lot of things to me about how to cook and grill. It was very informative for a kid that I feel like strangling some days.

While the restaurant wasn't full, it felt pretty lively. A group on the other side of the barricade got the happy birthday song sang to them and the waitresses / waiters were all smiling after. It was odd not being at a restaurant where the workers didn't like working there. At P&M the workers for the most part seemed to be in a great mood.

A server comes by and I totally snap back into reality when I realize I haven't really been looking inside the menu. I tell her 2 more minutes and she smiles and walks away. First of all the menu is HUGE. I wish I took a picture of this long menu. It had pretty much everything . A fish menu, entrees, apps, burgers, steak, a whole Greek menu. You know those waste people who go to fancy restaurants and out of the whole complex menu they just order Chicken Fingers just to "be safe"...

Yeah I'm one of those people still. haha it's called broke and PICKY for a reason now. Come on.

Anyway I heard a bell ring and I look up at the open kitchen to see something stacked upon an assload of fries. The server quickly grabs it and places it in front of me.

4 BIG pieces of chicken that in no way should never been considered a "finger" rested upon a mountain of fresh cut fries with a nice helping of plum sauce.

Lets start with the fries. These things make other fries look tiny in comparison. They're not greasy whatsoever. They're not overly seasoned too, which isn't a bad thing. They have a straight up potato taste to them packed with flavour that wasn't over-salted or anything. They're fantastic.

The chicken man. Damn yo. The chicken is no joke. The audacity of the waitress to call these chicken fingers when really it looked like half the chicken cut up into the 4 huge slices of tenders served on top of fries usually there's space for them on the side.

Chicken's lightly breaded. It wasn't your typical crunchy chicken finger. It was seasoned particularly well. In fact you know how pretty much a lot of deep fried chicken items look like the chicken is in a shell. This wasn't the case. You could literally see each speck of seasoning on this chicken.

OH and it was WHITE MEAT. Even the way the chicken broke apart was beautiful to watch. Eating it savouring it with the tangy and not too sweet Plum sauce convinced me to never become a vegetarian. In the words of the great Ari Gold "I need real protein, you know from the flesh of slaughtered animals." (Sorry Amelia)

Honestly, P&M has decent pricing, it may not fit the true Broke and P1cky philosophy but working in what you get for the price. I personally think it's worth it.

I couldn't even finish it man. I boxed it up and now I'm sitting down with mad itis.

So how do I rate it?

Well I'm sure you know how I would rate this.

P&M is a true local gem. The fact that you can see the blood, sweat and tears that goes into a place like this even if you aren't from Weston is truly special. I love places like this. Seeing all the people leaving commenting on how well done the food is, especially with the mass menu that they have to keep up. It's crazy I wouldn't dare rate this anything lower than a 9.

9.5/10

P&M, please continue to be the light that Weston has, showing that this place is filled with loving people and not idiots that pull the type of shit I listed in the beginning of the review.




oh and peachy says hi.

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Have any comments or ideas or you want to go to P&M one weekend?

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- Ian