To be honest, if not for the big taste I wouldn't have ever thought of coming here. We don't frequent this area of the city much and with the difficulties of finding parking... Enough said.
During my call to make reservations here, I was kindly informed by a gentleman that there was nothing too special about the big taste menu, and that they offered the same courses for a slightly higher price on a weekly basis anyways. I had thanked him kindly for his information and thought nothing of it. Now... Fast forward two weeks to the night of our reservation. Apparently the gentleman that had taken it had written it in the wrong time slot, but they were able to find us a table anyways.
We were seated in the middle of the restaurant. The resturant appeared to be quite cozy. I felt many accidental bumps by servers throughout the night. I was much confused on their use of paper on top of their table clothes and found their use of plastic flowers to be a bit disheartening. Nevertheless as follows is a breakdown of the items we ate; I did come here for that purpose after all.
Housemade Crabcakes with Tropical Fruit Salsa: They were a good sized crabcakes, found them to be a bit on the soft side. Not enough crisp to it. There was very little salsa, but that was fine as the salsa was quite tart.
Mixed Green Salad with candied pork belly lardons & Boursin Cheese: I was much disappointed with the salad, as I have a love affair with yellow beets. The beets on the plate had no sweetness to them, they were bland. The vinaigrette on the salad was a good balance to the boursin cheese. The candied pork belly was a bit tough for me, but the bf loved it. There was only one piece of it though... even though it's pluralized in the description.
Charbroiled "Brick-Cut" Alberta Grade AAA New York Steak with Back, fig & port wine reduction, fresh seasonal vegetables, hand rolled potato cakes: I liked their take on the potatoes; they were a good change from mashed. The steak was oddly cooked as the pink was mostly on the underside of the steak with a good inch at the top cooked to well-done. We weren't too sure what the purple vegetable was on the side as there was no waiter around to explain.
Charbroiled red spring salmon fillet with roma tomato, sweet bell pepper, cilantro, pine nut salsa, tarragon & jasmine steamed rice, seasonal winter vegetables: The salmon was cooked well, under seasoned and I don't know if it's just me... but I disliked the temperature difference between my warm salmon and ice cold salsa. I couldn't taste the tarragon in the jasmine at all. On the bright side, I finally got a golden beet with flavor.
Auchentoshan crème caramel: Presentation was not great. I've never had this dessert before, but it was a bit too watery for my taste. Soft though, reminded me of Japanese caramel pudding.
Irish cream cheesecake with wildberry coulis: I didn't taste any of the Irish cream... are my tastebuds that desensitized? The wild berry coulis... was blueberry sauce to me... They should've just called this a blueberry cheesecake... then my expectations and experience would be equally matched.
Final verdict: I think my expectations were much higher than they should've been. Will know better for next time.