| rev:text
| - I went here for new years eve dinner with my parents and my fiance. It was a prix fixe menu for 70 dollars that came to over 90 including tax and tip...before wine.
There was one vegetarian choice per course, which is expected and totally fine when it is 3-4 choices per course. The vegetarian choices sounded good and I was really excited before going.
So, the first course was a caprese salad with one very generous slab of Buffalo mozzarella, one slice of red tomato (a vine tomato I think), and one slice of yellow tomato. The tomatoes weren't great, but it is winter and they're out of season. The dressing was a flavorless olive oil and thin balsamic vinegar, and one leaf of basil. It was okay but would have been greatly improved by smoking the tomatoes, or infusing the oil, or even just using a high quality flavourful olive oil...or more basil. Or even slicing the cheese thinner.
Second course was "crispy ricotta gnocchi." This was where it really fell apart. They were battered and over cooked so it was just like hollow, deep fried batter, none of the tender pillows of ricotta gnocchi I'm used to with this dish. It was also over salted and just incredibly greasy...this coming from someone who loves salty french fries or onion rings. I couldn't finish them. The portion was also ridiculously small (I know gnocchi is always a smaller portion but these were mini gnocchi and only came as 8-10 pearl sized balls of grease) and I was really jealous of my non vegetarian dining partners who had plates of fresh pasta, but again, I couldn't finish them anyway.
I was really looking forward to the third course, risotto funghi, with 4 kinds of mushrooms, because I love mushrooms and was really hungry and already disappointed in the meal. Unfortunately it was the worst course of the night for me. It tasted like campbells mushroom soup that someone had added *extra* salt too. There were clumps of the rice stuck together. The different mushrooms which I picked out all tasted exactly the same, with the same texture, as they'd been overcooked in this mess. There was one whole clove of garlic, but the garlic flavours hadn't penetrated the rest of the dish. It was seriously awful, and my whole table agreed it was inedible. I was really jealous of the sides everyone else's meals came with, like wilted greens. They said theirs was okay but the steaks they request medium rare were unevenly cooked and medium well done that medium rare. There were some generous slices of parmesan on top of the risotto though, and that was the highlight of my meal.
It isn't like me to not be able to eat my food. I've been to many amazing Italian restaurants in Toronto, Italy, and other countries. I also eat at malls and cafeterias and 7-11. This food wouldn't have been good even if I were drunk (and I did get drunk on all the wine, since I was on an empty stomach as the food they served me was inedible).
Everyone else enjoyed their food, but were a little disappointed as nothing was outstanding or particularly good quality. It seemed to be a case of them not caring about vegetarian food at all, or maybe their chefs don't know how to work with flavours other than just using meat. The over salting was really jarring. I love salt, but this was disgusting.
Overall, it was one of the very worst meals I have ever been served and the price was outrageous for something I'd be angry and being served at a local pub.
(also, I'm not sure how to change my profile but I'm no longer vegan, heh)
|
![[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)