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| - Really wanted to like The Wilcox, as I have been a bit desperate for a downtown Toronto style restaurant in the Mississauga/Brampton area. The Wilcox did not make the grade this time, but I will try it again in hopes that there was just a rough patch.
The look of the place is a combination of modern and rustic (e.g. Antler chandeliers) and it was pretty clear that they put a pretty penny in designing this place. In the Peel Region there are few good patio offerings, as nearly everything seems to face the street. They did a good job of designing this one to be parking lot facing, but also secluded by a series of shrubbery and a walled pathway. This may very well be the best patio in the area.
Inside the place is bustling (on this Wednesday night around 8-9pm). It seems to be a bit confused on whether it is a gastropub or a club. Lots of trays full of shots floating to tables. The crowd is mainly 20 somethings suited up to the max, though I was in there in shorts and a nice t-shirt and certainly didn't feel like I was going to be judged.
The issue was mainly that most dishes had little errors, seemed to be 90% there, or were just downright screwed up.
We started with cocktails/beer. The beer is a real winner here, as there is a large variety of Ontario craft. The only non-craft were staples like Stella and Guinness. I had Side Launch's wheat ale, which is a great beer. My wife ordered from the cocktail menu. It's a nice menu, unfortunately they screwed up her Pisco Sour. They definitely forgot the simple syrup, which makes it a bitter and sour mess. It's possibly they over did it on the bitters too, because it was a bit brown. I complained and they remade it - 2nd one was great - so my guess is they just messed it up.
Appetizer was an octopus dish. It was cooked really well and it had some really well paired ingredients (e.g. Pesto; nuts; chorizo; etc). It was missing citrus though, which really had the balance off again. Even a squeeze of lemon across the top would of made this a great dish. It seems like a pretty obvious addition, which made me thinking something was forgotten again. I chose not to complain about this one.
My wife had a pasta entree (cream based; with a seafood protein I believe). Nice but needed pepper, which was not offered when the meal came. They brought a grinder over when we asked and that made for a really night dish.
I had steak frites. Fries were delicious, came with a chimichurri sauce that was really good, and my steak was raw as heck. I had ordered it medium rare, but even the waitress (who did not bring the dish) was baffled by how under cooked it was. She said they'd fire me a new one. They just retired the old one, but it was still enjoyable when it returned.
The waitress at this point was pretty apologetic. To their credit it was busy as hell and the wait staff were getting hammered. That being said, the kitchen did not appear to be and they were standing around joking a lot. Since several errors were there's, they do not really have an excuse.
The waitress offered us a free desert in apology - we had the churro's. These were pretty good, but the wait was a bit absurd for these (20 minutes after ordering) given it's literally produced from a piping bag and then few minutes in the frier.
Still - things were good enough to make me think this might have been an off night. I will come back and try again and will update everyone.
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