Crown and Tiger

Medicore bar.

We stopped by here as all the other bars in the area were packed with lineups. We got in and managed to get a table fairly quick.

I was hungry, so asked for the menu and was given that. When I was ready to order, all the items I wanted were "not currently available", as the waiter then told us the chef had left the building. Well - that would have been helpful to know from the beginning.

Anyways, the drinks here for pitchers are cheap - you can get the amber or domestic for $10 for a pitcher - which is a pretty good value.

The atmosphere was meh - I wouldn't really pick this as a bar I'd want to go to often as it was fairly small, boring, and the remixes they played were sometimes just terrible.

The only good thing about crown & tiger is they have cheap drinks. I've been here quite a bit over the years & the only reason to come is the low prices.

This place is just a true dive bar. Service is all over the map, I've never dared to try the food, drinks are basic, grimy & cheap. Rumour is they sell smokes too. Never seen or bought any but that's what I hear. This place can be packed or dead at random times. Good place to pre at because the drinks are so cheap but not really a destination kind of place.

Enjoy it for what it is. Get drunk, have a good time.

The kitchen has been taken over by Debu Saha, who has built a cult in the city for his amazing Indian cuisine. Based in a dive bar near College and Bathurst, this is definitely one of the best indian restaurants in the city. Inventive and delicious, this is a must of you're a fan of Indian food.

It was half past midnight on Friday night. I was catching some nocturnal rays from the glow of my laptop screen. Yelping. That's when my stomach started talking, and it wasn't to chat. It was saying, listen up bub, and not in a friendly way. I'd forgotten to eat. Again.

Out of instinct, I reached for the nearest iPhone-shaped object. Turned out to be an iPhone. Lucky. I punched the Yelp burst and did a search for what was open. Slim pickins. I did the same search on my laptop (it was right in front of me after all) and turned up the same. Nada. Nil. Nothing.

Then, that closeby iPhone-shaped object started to buzz. It was my pal Dick. He was at the Crown and Tiger. Boozin'. I looked blankly into the night for a long, long time then started to punch out a text: "Is their kitchen still open?" I slammed the laptop shut before waiting for the answer, and walked out the door.

So yeah, I'm that guy who cabbed over to Crown and Tiger well past midnight, elbowed my way through intoxicated college kids (and on that particular night, soused lawyers) and "enjoyed" a club sandwich that might as well have been pulled out of a sock. The pile of fries next to it only added insult to injury. Serves me right for being a grown man (technically) and not having sufficient dietary planning skills.

That said, the drinks are not costly in this dive and I had a reasonably good time here.

Obligatory Title Pun: This TONY is anything but.

Menu Readability: I actually phoned in my order. I'm a douche, I know.

Need to mention: Patio.

What this place teaches me about myself: Skipping a meal is forgivable -- but all three? That's just weird.

Ubersketch

What do you get when you mix a College and Spadina location with $10 pitchers of local beer?

It's a rhetorical question - if you know the area, you know the answer. This place has laminate floors, halfway-functional bathrooms, a really "interesting" crowd and cheap beer. We made spot #15 on my epic birthday bender the port of last call on our Queen-to-College-to-Spadina crawl, and realized almost immediately that we should have stayed at the last bar instead (Ted's - review forthcoming).

Even with $10 pitchers the place wasn't packed - the rest of the market isn't so sure about this place either. While we were there, though, I witnessed quite possibly the funniest thing I had seen all weekend: two drunken twenty-somethings, forgetting their own strength this late in the evening, clinked their glasses together so enthusiastically that they shattered one of them. What a waste of beer.

Came to Crown & Tiger with boyfriend after a short dinner with friends at La Palette. He had told me he wasn't that hungry so we got the duck confit (single leg) to share. He also wasn't feeling very well, so I thought that that would be enough for us. Keeping in mind I had had a family dinner prior and was really just there to see some old friends, and that I just ate the accompanying veggies.

Well... it turns out that I underestimated boyfriend's appetite, and so we went over to the Crown & Tiger (as he had previously been here before and really enjoyed the Coney fries). Boyfriend tends to like the pubs. I have been to Fossil & Haggis in Scarborough 3 times in one week since we met. I think I'm turning into a pub whore now. Oi!

We ordered the Coney Fries AND Onion Rings... I think boyfriend is trying to fatten me up to weed out the competition? And just the day before when we were at Fossil & Haggis he had sworn off late night, greasy pub fare. Apparently tonight was an exception because the ungratifying portions of French food at La Palette left more to be desired.

The Coney fries were basically their house fries topped with beef, beans, and cheese. Think Chili fries minus the chili sauce. The fries were thin cut (my preference), and the cheese was stringy. However, the chef must've been falling asleep (seeing as it was 12:30AM, this is quite possible), and some parts of the fries were overly salted. Yikes!

The Onion Rings were delicious and fried to a golden brown.

During dinner at La Palette the topic of poutine came up. Boyfriend had kidded while we were chowing down the Onion Rings and Coney Fries that he might order Poutine. Alas, he did not end up ordering la Poutine, but he did go ahead and order another basket of house fries. He said the Coney Fries were disappointing and he just HAD to have the house fries to redeem his love for Crown & Tiger. And so redemption was found in the house fries. This time, the chef probably woke up, as there were no randomly, heavily salted fries.

We didn't have any drinks as I was driving and Boyfriend isn't much of a drinker. But I did see "$12 for 4 shots of tequila/Jager" scribbled on a chalkboard on the wall. This place could bring the phrase "cheap drunk" from a cliché to reality. 1 tequila, 2 tequila, 3 tequila, FLOOR!

The damage at the end of the day was $20 including tip. Not bad considering we ordered 3 different items.

Don't eat here... but use that money and buy some of their cheap drinks!

This is one of my favourite places to stop off for a cheap pint / pitcher or round of Jager Shots... but you probably aren't going to want to stay.

It's pretty sketchy and the bathroom are half-functional, sometimes with a layer of water on the floor and only one of the three stalls operational.

I end up here on a lot of Friday nights whether I want to or not. It's not a bad place. I'm always early as usual so for the first hour or so it's pretty calm and I'm able to have a pint in relative peace. By midnight it's gone wild and I'm able to enjoy $10 pitchers in a loud, packed, obnoxious circus. It's also a good place if you enjoy morning-after tequila headaches as they have 4 shots for $12.

The servers are fine. They do a good job of checking to see if you need more cheap booze. If you don't feel like dealing with servers the people behind the bar are pretty quick to serve you as well. Apparently there is food. My memories of that are kind of hazy but I know I've sampled nachos a couple times. They are just run of the mill nachos. Ok if they are already at the table but with reasonable pizza and shawarma around I don't really see the need.

The washrooms are disgusting so if you're a heavy pee-er be prepared for that and maybe bring some hand sanitizer. A roll of paper towel in the purse never hurts either as they have some kind of gross hand drying device with a real cloth hanging on it that I've never figured out. Finally, there is usually a no-cover dance party downstairs. It can get pretty packed but rubbing up against strangers can be fun sometimes after the second or third pitcher.

Accept this place for what it is. Total dive bar. Then check it out. Good times to be had.

I go to this bar a lot because it's near where I live and it has cheap beer. This place is the definition of adequate. There is plenty of seating, the service is pretty good, and you can get multiple types of beer at ten dollars a pitcher which is perfect for my student budget. The nachos are also good.

When I just want to have a couple beers with friends the Crown and Tiger fits the bill. It's not too loud or crowded that it becomes uncomfortable. If you want a bar with really good food or really lively atmosphere however there are better places to go nearby.

Do you think you're better than Crown and Tiger? Pfft. Whatever.

Last Friday myself and two of my favourites trolled Kensington for something cheap. Proper cheap. Days of years-gone-by Kensington cheap but nothing peaked our interest, or proved to *actually* be reasonably priced. So we hit College and started towards Bathurst. We briefly considered Toby's or the Beast, but couldn't bring ourselves to do either. For whatever reason this place seemed better? It's not really, but our logic at the time was already blurry (thanks Last Temptation).

We didn't eat, we just drank. Boy did we drink. Drank like we used to when we were the median age of the clientele in this joint. $14 for four shots means we ordered a lot of shots. Gross ones. Cheap pitchers of beer. Etc. It was really just a giant shame spiral among some buds that should never be spoken of again.

The place is clean enough and the bathrooms aren't in the basement, but if you have your undergraduate degree you're probably too old to spend more than the odd drunk evening in this joint.

PEPPER'S PISSED because I'm friggin' ancient. I might still be hungover from last Friday. My old bones!