Damn, this place is hidden. Unless you're working in the business buildings and trade departments next door (or you search for it on Yelp), this is really hard to miss. If this place was in a better location, I think it would do way better!
Anyway, my family came here for lunch yesterday after we surprised my mum at her work for her birthday. We walked in around 1:30 and were able to grab a table right away, right after beating the lunch rush -- woohoo! First thing I noticed about this place is that it's horse themed. "The Derby" is a very fitting name. The owner is a fan of horse races, so on all the TV's you have horse races playing in the background. Each table also has a small TV to watch the races. There were also horse portraits all over the walls. The attention to detail was fantastic.
As for food, they have a really large menu consisting of comfort-food style sandwiches, burgers, and salads. I stuck to water for choice of drink this time around, but they have some really great drink specials if that's what you're fancying. For my meal I kept bouncing back between the idea of wrap or salad, and ultimately the wrap won. Southwest chicken wrap, to be exact. On the side I had a choice of fries or soup, and went with their daily soup (salmon + clam chowder). My mom always raves about their onion rings, so my brother and I decided to split a small side of those as well.
The food came out pretty quickly and we went to town on them. To be honest, the wrap could have used more sauce, as it was pretty flavourless. The crispy chicken was great and the portion size was ginormous. I could only get through one half of the wrap. The soup was also a bit of a disappointment as well. Warm and filling, but also flavourless. However, the onion rings was the real kicker for me. Someone wasn't lying when they say mom is always right, because damn, I loved their onion rings. Mix it up with a little chipotle aioli and we got ourselves a party in our mouth!
My brother got the grilled cheese special with tomato soup, and I wish I made the same call because it was a lot tastier. If I'm ever back here, that is what I'll be getting -- with a side of onion rings of course! Also, I need to educate myself on derby races so that I can maybe win some money next time I'm here ;) read more