| rev:text
| - We saw this place opened up recently and decided to give it a try. It's located in quaint little downtown Markham, surrounded by other nice shops and homes. The restaurant is very small on the inside - only perhaps five or six tables (so make a reservation).
It definitely has a trendy, "uptown" kind of vibe: hipster ingredients such as truffle mushrooms, sunchoke, and lotus leaf; mash-ups of familiar foods with unexpected twists, such as "beef and broccoli" but with bone marrow, or cheesecake but with tofu; an eclectic cocktail menu; and walls decorated with lucky cats, Polaroid pictures, and "#AZYUN." The restaurant also has a feeling of intimacy, as if you're just eating dinner at your aunt and uncle's house. The chef's name is on the menu, and you can watch him cook from your seats. And the waitress struck up friendly conversation and cracked some jokes, but in a "we're just chillin'" kind of way, not in a rehearsed, "I'm trying to make you like me" kind of way.
The food itself was quite tasty. We enjoyed the pork belly manitou and the lamb ribs the most. The duck noodle and the beef + broccoli were also quite good. We finished off with the tofu cheesecake for dessert. Remember that this is a tapas restaurant - the idea is to order multiple small plates to share. I'd say most dishes are sized to be shared amongst two people - but we made do sharing them amongst the three of us. Also, a good rule of thumb is around 2 dishes per person in your group (e.g. if you're coming with just your spouse, the two of you could split 4 dishes).
A few small things detracted from the experience. Firstly, the service was a bit slow, which caused the meal to drag on longer than we wanted. In fact, I think the waitress forgot about some of our orders for a while. Secondly, since the restaurant is so small (and since we didn't have a reservation), we got a less-than-ideal seating arrangement at the high-top by the window, where it was a bit more awkward to interact with one another (although, of course, we appreciate getting a table in the first place, rather than being turned away). And lastly, the restaurant got a bit boisterous: at times there were kids crying, parents whistling, and people shouting. Nothing was a deal-breaker, but these things made the overall experience just good instead of great.
On the whole, we had a fun time. It was nice to check out this new restaurant, and we hope they do well!
|
![[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)