Lagoon City: Brechin, Ontario - July 2011

The waterfront community of Lagoon City is located on the Eastern shores of Lake Simcoe, between the towns of Orillia and Beaverton, Ontario. I call it a waterfront subdivision, and I mean that in a nice way! You have the best of both worlds, a driveway for your car and a dock or covered slip for your boat. Some of the condos even have a boat house on your lower level. Imagine, open the garage door, pull in your boat, and bingo your on the lower level of your house!
Above photo courtesy of Lagoon City Community Association.

Whether you decided to visit Lagoon City by car or boat, its a lovely destination.

After entering Lagoon City via boat from Lake Simcoe, on the right (above photo) you will approach The Harbour Inn & Resort Club. Overnight accommodations are available here, but we have never checked them out. Watch this website for an upcoming review of Chef Konstantine Restaurant at the Harbour Inn. We have heard and read exceptional reviews for this greek cusine restaurant and we will be sure to be visiting it soon before the season ends.

It is really cool to cruise though all the little channels of the community (above). It's like driving down a street, but only in your boat. Further down from the Harbour Inn on the left is Lagoon City Marina, where we decided to do a transient stay for three nights in our boat. (pictured below)

They were calling for rain so we opted for a covered slip, and the Marina has a restaurant which was a big plus. We had water, electricity and cable TV hook-ups at our slip. Unfortunately I did't bring enough cable wire to hook up our TV.

Kaytoo Restaurant & Bar is located on the 2nd floor above the Lagoon City Marina office. There is an outside balcony that overlooks the marina. Although we opted to sit inside, we did come out to enjoy our drinks and have a smoke. For those that opted to sit outside, once the sun started to set, they were all chased indoors by the mosquitoes and spiders.

The first night I opted for the house white wine, which was acceptable. It must have been good, because it was my wine of choice for the next three nights we dined there. Wednesday night they had wings on special for .65 cents each. I ordered a few for us to sample and they were very good. In hindsite, we should have just done a wing night on Wednesday, but we were hungry for a good dinner. I had the beer battered whitefish and home cut fries which was excellent. My husband had the beef filet and garlic mashed, which he enjoyed. He said it was the best garlic mashed he ever tasted.

The restaurant was very busy that night and our waitress warned us that there could be a wait, but we didn't mind as we were not going anywhere! Thats what vacations are for:-) There was a couple of tables of I would say 10 to 12 people and a few other tables occupied by couples. There was only two waitresses on duty, but they did a good job, even though it did take awhile our food arrived hot!

The second night we had burgers as we were not as hungry. The were good and we had the home cut fries which were very good! And we added a side order of perogies to try them, as they do offer an all you can eat perogie night. I think the Thursday special was and afternoon happy hour with drink specials and nachos. The service was even better this night. I am sorry I didn't try the bison buger, as I heard quite a few people ordering them the night before.

The final night (Friday) we went for dinner a bit early, as the regular boaters would be showing up for the long August weekend and we wanted to beat the crowds. The first Monday in August in Canada is a civic holiday, or Simcoe Day as its sometimes called in Ontario.

It was not that busy yet but they had extra staff on duty for the weekend crowd. My husband ordered the caesar salad with chicken which he said was good. I enjoyed the whitefish so much that I ordered it again. I'm picky when it comes to ordering fish, I don't like something that is fishy, as Halibut is my usual choice, but I'm glad I tried the whitefish. It was fantastic.

One nice touch they had on their menu which I though was really cool, is that if you were out on the lake fishing, you could bring your catch and the chef would clean, filet and cook it along with rice and a vegetable for only $14.95. I think I'm going to have to go fishing soon!!

The only downfall we have had with our three nights dining at Kaytoo was on our final night. I had read some bad reviews about the Brechin location, but we had no complaints with the food or the service. This last meal we had, on a night when they had more staff on duty and less customers than the first night, our food did not arrive hot. The home cut fries were dried up.

Not sure if they had a different chef on duty that night or the waitress just left it in the kitchen too long. Bottom line, I did tell her about it, not complaining though, just for their future reference, and she didn't seem to care.