| rev:text
| - Unfortunately, my trip to Harlem was officially "meh."
I need to preface that I'm from The South, and Harlem's brand of soul food is a Creole/Caribbean mix that isn't the soul food that I'm familiar with. I'm not holding that against them though.
Even though I had called about reserving a table for two, they had no idea I was coming and wanted us to sit at a 4-seater right by the drafty door. My partner even asked if we could sit at a free table further inside the restaurant and that was shot down. "Nothing I can do about the draft" the server said. An hour later, that table they didn't want us to sit at was still unoccupied.
Even though there was a band playing upstairs, they left the radio on downstairs, creating a sonic dissonance. There was also a dissonance between the prices on the menu and the paper napkins on our table and the rack of old magazines right beside us.
Before I talk about the food, let's talk about the drinks menu. Their cocktail list is a blast from the past. Retro cocktails are cool. Only in this case the past is 1998. Everything is a fruity concoction. The cocktail prices are certainly in line with 2014 though.
For a starter we had the candied plantains. It was a good-sized portion and they were our favourite part of the meal. It was fun starting our meal with a sweet dish, and in the future we're going to consider having dessert as an appetizer to shake things up.
For a main I had the jambalaya. It was a hearty portion. The chicken, catfish, and sausage were great. The shrimp, however, still had their tails attached - something I didn't notice until I had eaten a few. Sometimes a dish where everything is all mixed in like a jambalaya ends up losing it's distinctness. In this case, every bite had a slightly different flavour. Speaking of bite, there was not at all. I like my food with a kick, and this jambalaya had none. Usually, that's no problem. I'll just add some salt and pepper and hot sauce. But condiments were nowhere to be found.
We didn't have to wait very long for our food and drinks to arrive, and our server was very friendly when he wasn't discounting our desire to not sit beside the door. We did have to wait a while to order our mains. And wait much too long to pay. In the end, our server left the payment machine with me and wandered off. We'd been waiting so long to leave, I took what I figured was our receipt and left.
I'm still waiting for Toronto to get a good if not great soul food restaurant. Harlem isn't it.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)