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| - Located just of east of Yonge and Bloor, narrowly missing the heavy traffice, Peridot is a swanky-looking restaurant/lounge conveniently located above a basement-level pub*. Its tall ceilings, minimalistic decor and bright lights ooze charm.
My partner and I came here one Friday evening because I had a LivingSocial coupon in hand - $30 worth of food for the price of $15. We'd arrived around 5 pm, and although it was pretty early for the evening, the place was dead. We ordered an extra-spicy Bloody Mary - since the Clamato's isn't exactly vegetarian-friendly - and it was a pleasant surprise. Normally we'd get appetizers, but since we were in a time crunch, ended up going for two entrees: goat cheese ravioli with sweet peppers, mushrooms, sage white wine butter and herbed ricotta ($15) and the tagliatelle - grilled eggplant, sweet peppers, red lentils, capers, kalamata olives, plum tomato, chili, basil, arugala, lemon extra virgin olive oil ($13).
While both sounded fantastic by description alone, the actual dish did no justice to the name. The sage white wine butter was more like a pool of pasta water that hadn't been properly drained; as the waitress set the dish down, the liquid sloshing around was immediately noticeable. There wasn't much sage taste, although I could see large slivers of it in my dish. It was fine, but simply disappointing and not bad enough to send back to the kitchen. The tagliatelle was also a let-down; while the ingredients sounded like a delicious combination, it seemed as if the vegetables were lacking and there was something not quite right about it.
We seemed to be the only customers eating here, except for a steady stream of women and men in business attire headed straight to the bar in the back. While I only passed through the bar area to access the washroom, the back room looked a bit worn. There were several tall drink tables and stools, but large empty spaces around the corners which made it feel very awkward. The regulars, however, didn't seem mind; they made themselves at home - someone had their Blackberry charging on a cardboard box, the phone charged to an outlet in the wall - and seemed to know the staff by a first-name basis.
Seems like this used to be a happening place, but when a business is selling Groupon copycats, it's an indication that something's gone wrong. Every single staff member I talked to or passed by seemed genuinely attentive and we left the waitress a decent tip. The real problem here is the food; they should either retrain or rehire their kitchen staff if they want their business to survive.
As Gorden Ramsey would point out, keep your menu small and of what you've got on it, make sure you excel at it and flaunt it well. Peridot, I'm sad to say, is already flunking that simple little rule.
*The pub downstairs is named The Spotted Dick. My partner, while nestling a beer and waiting for my arrival, heard a few guests of the Marriott complaining about the quality of the food in the restaurant upstairs.
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