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| - This review pertains to the Restaurant Week Prix Fixe for $50.10.
The Skinny: solid steak house, good sides, pretty good desserts - however issues with serving sizes (4), service: great, warm and friendly (4), value: the prix fixe menus are the thing to get here... a la carte is very pricey and I wouldn't recommend it (3).
We used to hit Craftsteak when it was still just Craftsteak. The prix fixe menu was around $50-60 per person and pre-Top Chef fame. The reason why we loved it was the quality, the variety and the reasonable cost. Since then, they've steadily raised the prices to around $80/person which is way overpriced (plus they changed the beef to black angus... it used to be kobe.)
So we returned for Restaurant Week for it's more reasonable price point at $50.10/person. We had 5 people at our table and we were quite pleased by the spread.
Service was quite prompt, warm and efficient. Our server was pleased that we had come in for the Restaurant week event and was eager to help us use our vouchers for free drinks. The manager did stop by to greet us and ensure we were having a good time.
We were served the grilled quail, shaved fennel salad, persian cucumber/watercress salad, mozzarella salad for appetizers. This was followed by prime flat iron steak, grilled angus skirtsteak, sweet corn, yukon potatoes, scallops with the lemon vinaigrette and a dish of baby shitake mushrooms. (for more details, please see the above pics).
The grilled quail was tender, perfectly seasoned and absolutely delicious. As were all three of the starter salads. We actually received two dishes of the mozzarella salad although we would have preferred more of the fennel salad. Along with the piping hot butter pan rolls, all the flavours of the food worked together beautifully.
The two beef dishes were well-executed and I loved the springs of fresh thyme. The scallops had a wonderful caramelization on both sides.The corn was fabulous as always and we were given two dishes of this.
Although I really like the flavours of their Yukon Gold potatoe puree, I do like my potatoes to be a little less soft (albeit it's a puree... right? but still a little texture would be better). The shitake mushrooms were a very small serving size considering that this dish was to be shared amongst 5 of us. Same goes for the potato puree.
We had two rather large servings of skirtsteak and flat iron prime with relatively smaller portions of sides. I think I would have like more sides rather than so much beef.
Dessert consisted of five separate dishes: a peach pavlova, a chocolate panna cotta, a molten chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream, monkey bread with banana ice cream and a traditional cheesecake.
Of the 5 desserts, the monkey bread and the molten chocolate cake were my favourite. The warm monkey bread had a rich cinnamon, nut topping and was perfectly paired with banana gelato. The molten chocolate cake was moist on the outside, runny on the inside - just the way it's supposed to be.
The chocolate panna cotta was a little too firm texturally. While I did like the peach sorbet on top of the pavlova, the pavlova itself was a little too thick and thus felt very hard overall. The cheesecake was good but nothing special.
In essence, this is simple food is done right. The only problems were the proportions of the side dishes and some issues with the desserts. This results in a 4 star review.
I have to say, for $50, it's a good deal but certainly not $80ish as it normally is. Because we did the Wet Republic event, we got 30.10/person voucher plus a coupon for a free drink each. So overall, we paid $30ish per person (including tax and tip). It was great seeing our bill at the end.
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