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| - Let me start with a slightly obnoxious description of it my experience, but one that captures it very accurately:
Messis was a simulacrum of fine dining.
Let me elaborate. From the facade to the interior decoration, I felt as if I'd walked into a fine-dining establishment. Good start, right? It wasn't our plan to come here, but the Harbord House had a very long wait, and we gave up and searched for nearby alternatives.
Service was generally pretty good, although with a few minor flaws. Bread showed up almost instantaneously, but water glasses were pretty frequently empty. There was also quite a delay before the waiter came over to check on us the first time, and we had a few questions about the menu that needed clarification. I will compliment the waiter though on his knowledge of the wine list, which was both extensive, and somewhat reasonably priced.
The menu is full of very fancy-sounding dishes with fancy restaurant descriptions, so I was pretty excited to try things out. Once the food arrived though was when things started to go downhill, and I wondered where I was.
The appetizers: We ordered two appetizers. The first was a "goat cheese phyllo medallion with figs and arugula served on sauteed artichokes, tomatoes, and mixed mushrooms with a pommery vinaigrette and black cherry reduction." Phew...I'm tired just from typing that. Fancy restaurant description, eh? Geez, it sounds nice, however, I was overwhelmed by the goat cheese mixed with the overly sweet sauce. Nothing was in balance, and the worst was the inedible stem left on the fig. Inexpertly executed.
The second appetizer was a "Panko crusted fried calamari served with rice noodles, peanuts, red peppers and pineapples in an exotic fruit, sweet and sour sauce garnished with fresh mint" Yikes! Let me translate what it came out as. Slightly-soggy overly large panko on relatively tasty underlying calamari, but which was ruined by the most cloyingly sweet sauce I have ever tasted in my life. This sauce could not have possibly been tasted by the kitchen prior to serving. And here's a clue to a server....when a table of 5 young men splitting 2 appetizers leaves one less than half finished, there's something wrong with it.
Finally, my entree sounded amazing as well on the menu, and I was so in the mood for a delicious vegetarian dish. Alas, it was a special, so I can't find the official description, but it was a phyllo-crusted goat cheese and mixed vegetable tart served with a salad and chickpeas. First of all, the chickpeas were basically raw, which is fine occasionally in a salad, but read as undercooked, starchy, blandness in this dish. The mixed-vegetable tart should have really been called an onion tart, as no other vegetables were to be found in it. Again, I left at least half of it unfinished. Had this not been a work dinner, I would have surely sent the chickpeas back to the stove for more cooking. One of my colleagues ordered a pizza which came out looking very unfortunate...overly greasy cheese with no apparent thought given to presentation.
Overall, here's where I'm at. This restaurant has so much promise...they have a great atmosphere, competent waitstaff, and a menu that reads as if it's filled with exciting fresh dishes that are intricately composed. However, in my eating experience, the kitchen universally failed to deliver and every dish I tasted had a flaw so pronounced as to be fatal.
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