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| - I heard a lot of praise from my partner in crime regarding URSA who was really wowed by her last meal here. So, this was an easy choice for a birthday treat.
The space is what you expect on this area of Queen Street - it's trendy with your standard-issue exposed brick wall, open kitchen and wood bar and drawing in the targeted audience of hip yuppies. From all appearances, this is not a typical place I would frequent - judging by the crowd, it seemed more a place to be seen at rather than people there just for the food. However, the service is quite prompt and courteous from a waitstaff best summarized as 'relaxed hipster' and careful to detail each dish when served.
It's a short seasonal menu with appetitzers running from $15 - $25 and mains running from $20 - $30 and their tasty cocktails are around $12. The menu simply lists the ingredients of each dish, but give no details on taste or preparation (I have no fuckin' idea why it's cool to do this now at hot restaurants). But our waiter was quite helpful in navigating the menu.
I started with the foie gras on panettone with chilled banana popsicle pear and a Barolo Chinato sauce ($26). The pear and cake bread added an interesting twist and sweet contrast to richness and aroma of the perfectly seared foie gras. While inventive and balanced, I should have stay away from this dish, I shouldn't have stuck to my personal 'if foie gras is on the menu, you must order it' rule. I'm a bit of a purist and think the less you do to foie gras, the less chance of fucking it up. Not for me.
For my main, Georgian bay whitefish with sea urchin sauce, black truffle, chips, pickled juniper and rapini. The fish was tender and flaky and the sea urchin sauce was amazingly aromatic with a nice crunch from the chips. However, really felt the truffles were unnecessary addition to make the dish seem more 'haute' and worth the $28 price tag - it's like adding goldleaf -- fancy but useless. The truffles were lost in sea urchin sauce and the bitterness of the rapini was overpowering.
My vegetarian tablemate ordered the single applicable appy and entree in the housemade tofu ($14) and seasonal vegetable plate ($21). I had a taste of both and I must say, both her dishes were better than mine. I noticed one of the reviewers mentioned URSA is better with veggies than protein -- I have to concur with that statement from my experience.
At first glance, prices are quite reasonable but the portions are very small (could tell the waiter was trying to steer me towards the heartier main, but I ignored the warning). Despite the trendy, casual decor, hip waitstaff, it's terribly old-fashioned in that "gourmet = small portions" mentality. I didn't even come hungry and felt shortchanged. I don't mind small portions if it knocks my socks off and I really expected more from the hype and price. My tablemate left hungry and felt that URSA wasn't as good as she remembered.
I almost feel bad that I'm giving them a pretty low score due to the portions and pricing. I like the food but can't see myself rushing to come back here again. Maybe I ordered the wrong things. Perhaps the food was too 'sophisticated' and 'complex' for me and I'm a glutton for wanting more -- but I can't help but feel the hype behind this place is primarily fuelled by pretension.
I'm in the... URSA Minor... (eh? eh? see what I did there?) but, two stars from me.
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