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| - We had a list of recommendations for restaurants a mile long during our trip to Toronto and ended up eating very well at Oyster Boy, Foxley, a Jamie Kennedy farmer and winemaker dinner, Starfish, and some excellent casual places like Standard Fish and Chips. The overall quality was very high, but this dinner was better than anything I have ever had outside of Chez Panisse. One particular chef recommended that we go to Lucien since he eats all over the world and had his most memorable meal in ten years there. With a recommendation like that, we had to go and we were glad we did.
The amuse in the beginning was delightful, a mini reuben sandwich with truffled mustard. The chef didn't like that we hadn't ordered the grilled octopus and chorizo dish so he sent it out for us, and it was one of the best appetizers I have had. The octopus sausage seemed a bit creepy to me, but when I tasted it I quickly changed my mind. The salty, savory flavor of the octopus and chorizo were outstanding.
We had the sunchoke flan, which had a perfect texture and interesting taste, the salad with fried shallots (it was the only miss of the evening, there was no dressing at all on the greens and that really didn't appeal to any of us), and the pork belly, which was fantastic. For mains we shared the lamb and the "chowder". The lamb was good, a very solid dish with three preparations, but the chowder was on a whole different level. It was a deconstructed chowder with various seafood and sauces arranged beautifully on a big square plate, my friend observed that it looked like some kind of underwater Tim Burton world.
So much of the time great restaurants fall down on the desserts, but the dessert we had with malt was amazing. Service was good and attentive, wine was tasty, basically all of us loved it!
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