Toronto restaurant recommendation

Had a fantastic meal at Canoe last night. Much better than last year's excellent offering. I'd rate it as one of the best meals I've had.

Originally Posted by red120

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Used to hit up this obscure Japanese place, Ematei, downtown on St. Patrick's St when I lived in TO.. fantastic place. Fresh, immaculately prepared, tasty.. pretty hard on the wallet though.

Oh, and the okonomiyaki place near HR, if anyone's been there.

Originally Posted by fwiffo

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Ematei is still there. I haven't been there in almost a year though but I always enjoy the black cod while I'm there. It is a bit pricey (and a bit of a walk from me at Yonge & Dundas). I haven't been there for dinner but lunch times move pretty briskly.

I finally got to Ematei for dinner recently for the first time. I quite liked it, but agree it was a tad pricey. Would return though.

Originally Posted by audiophilia

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Had a fantastic meal at Canoe last night. Much better than last year's excellent offering. I'd rate it as one of the best meals I've had.

Was it the Summerlicious menu?

No.

Originally Posted by nmoraitis

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Was it the Summerlicious menu?

Noooothing is ever good with Summerlicious. Well, I've never had anything good. I actually try to avoid restaurants when they run these promotions. I did stumble into one establishment once and the server's eyes lit up when I said I'd order a la carte!

Originally Posted by Spatlese

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I finally got to Ematei for dinner recently for the first time. I quite liked it, but agree it was a tad pricey. Would return though.

You would think with the premium they charge on certain things outside of the lunch specials that they'd improve the washroom a little bit but oh well.

Anyway, boilermaker for me on the Richtree/Marche patio tonight. Remarkably, it didn't rain.

For tomorrow I want to go somewhere really posh for lunch but it looks like the weather will be horrid (Canoe and Bymark were on my list).

C5 tomorrow night with family. Pub run with the work mates on Friday at lunch (Elephant and Castle on Gerrard) and hopefully something worthwhile for Friday evening!

Originally Posted by fwiffo

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Noooothing is ever good with Summerlicious. Well, I've never had anything good. I actually try to avoid restaurants when they run these promotions. I did stumble into one establishment once and the server's eyes lit up when I said I'd order a la carte!

I completely agree with you there, as I have had two terrible experiences with Winterlicious/Summerlicious. You can't get the true essence/taste of a restaurant with the Summerlicious set menu.

Originally Posted by fwiffo

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C5 tomorrow night with family. Pub run with the work mates on Friday at lunch (Elephant and Castle on Gerrard) and hopefully something worthwhile for Friday evening!

Have you been to C5 before? I'm a ROM member, and went when the Crystal first opened for lunch. I thought it was quite good.

Originally Posted by fwiffo

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Noooothing is ever good with Summerlicious. Well, I've never had anything good. I actually try to avoid restaurants when they run these promotions. I did stumble into one establishment once and the server's eyes lit up when I said I'd order a la carte!

Having been to a few, I now just avoid these promos too. In my view, there seems to be a disconnect between restaurants possibly needing to lower their standards to churn out volumes of food they might not usually cook, and customers showing up expecting the regular level of food and service but at a fraction of the regular price.

Originally Posted by Spatlese

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Having been to a few, I now just avoid these promos too. In my view, there seems to be a disconnect between restaurants possibly needing to lower their standards to churn out volumes of food they might not usually cook, and customers showing up expecting the regular level of food and service but at a fraction of the regular price.

A long time ago I went to Truffles which is the best example of what you mentioned par excellence. I assure you what I ate was NOT what a regular patron would eat but I accepted my poison because I paid a pittance to be in that establishment. No, I was not offered any fungi either.

Originally Posted by nmoraitis

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Have you been to C5 before? I'm a ROM member, and went when the Crystal first opened for lunch. I thought it was quite good.

I spent some time there for lunch and in the lounge back in March. I haven't been at dinner. I know it's a rip off place but it was a special request from family. Of course, my reservation is at 8:00 PM and I know the ROM closes before that on a Thursday so it'll be interesting to see how I can get in. I'm also a ROM member too. But I'm a member mostly because other people use my membership to get in. I barely get time to see it myself (I think once every membership year!)

Meetings ran over today into lunch and I ended up only having a little over an hour to grab lunch before my staff meeting. I grabbed a margarita at Pickle Barrel and some apps.

Once I finish up this document, it's off to Jump for drinks (to make up for my crap lunch) and then up to C5.

Just came back from C5. About $400 damage for 4 so not too bad. I went for the fixed price and had the cornish hen and foie gras for starter and the lamb for a main. Then I had a a strawberry pie. This is not a place to get loaded up on food so the portions were small but they were pretty rich. If you take fixed price, you get a cheese plate too. The cheese is really really heavy. Chef's surprise for the day was some kind of ham fritter; with the piggy being from Spain.

Food was coming up pretty slow. It took 2 hours to serve all 3 + 1 cheese plate course. It easily could have gone longer if it was a bigger party. Funny thing is the place wasn't even half full. Service was good in the beginning but tapered off after the mains came out as the waiter went on to serve other folks (sitting started at 8pm so I guess it's the really late people).

Oh I'd check the prices if you want to do fixed price. If you take a simple salad ($14) and something like the halibut ($26?) and a standard dessert $12, you never get close to the $65 fixed price.

Had drinks at Jump. I wanted to try this vodka cucumber martini but they ran out of cucumber juice. Funny thing was it took the lady 15 minutes to figure that out and my work mate got a drink already! So I ended up having some kind of really sour cocktail that she suggested and then some raspberry iced tea vodka combos.

Back to work tomorrow but hoping to hit some more places to kick off the weekend.

Had the dining room 10 course tasting menu last night at colborne lane. Of the 10 dishes three were exceptional (all deserts) a few very good and two that were not to my liking at all. All in all a very pleasant experience. I'd go again.

Originally Posted by doink

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Had the dining room 10 course tasting menu last night at colborne lane. Of the 10 dishes three were exceptional (all deserts) a few very good and two that were not to my liking at all. All in all a very pleasant experience. I'd go again.

Would love to hear more details on the specific courses (unless you had too much wine to accompany the tasting, and can't remember). I'm still interested in trying this place.

Originally Posted by Spatlese

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Would love to hear more details on the specific courses (unless you had too much wine to accompany the tasting, and can't remember). I'm still interested in trying this place.

As my GF does not drink, I tend to tone down my consumption when I am with her. Unfortunately my brain was a bit foggy due to overworking. Here is a better recollection of what we had and what was good, Our menu was slightly modified due to neither of us liking lamb or having a desire to eat foie gras. This is the first sign things were going to go well, they modified the menu for us.

First course - amuse bouche - compressed water melon, with aloe vera ice in a vodka reduction. The water melon was semi frozen to remove the liquid and squeezed to lock in the flavours. Aloe vera ice was very subtle flavour.

2nd - salmon sashimi - very good cut of salmon, with reduced glazes and foams, one of the better dishes we had

3rd -wok fried squid. The best part of this was the mango curry "ketchup" that came with it. Not a fan of squid, so this is on teh low end of enjoyment

4th - heirloom tomato salad, came with a basil foam that looked interesting and had a good flavour. A bit too salty though

it starts to get fuzzy after this as I was getting tired

Black cod - while a nice cut of fish, I did not like it and think it is because I don't like cod. Interesting part of this dish was a dried tapioca garnish.

Lamb substitutes - Rock Hen - she had the hen as she does not eat beef, it was perhaps the best dish of the night, the glaze and the fig compote that came with it were incredible. I had a good cut of beef, but it was unremarkable, except for the whipped parsnips which were very good.

Deserts - three - this is where the kitchen shone and the highlight of the meal

A caramel dulche de leche that had an amazing lemon cake buried in the caramel goodness. Only problem is that as a person that does not lioke salt, the inclusion of a layer of salt was a bit off putting.

Table made ice cream, an incredible lemon based ice cream, made at the table with liquid nitrogen, served with a fresh donut and fruit compote. Other interesting flavour was freeze dried sour cream.

Coffee bomb - an interesting frozen after dinner chocolate, comes out frozen, pop it in your mouth, let it sit for a few seconds and then bite into it. Caution if you have tooth sensitivity, it is very cold. Good news is that it does not taste like coffee.

There was also an intermezzo, which I don't recall

I would go back for the rock hen, salmon and deserts.

We had a the following for wines piniot grigio (very dry and tart, went well with the cod), riesling ( very nice), a cab/merlot blend (huge flavour, went well with beef tenderloin). Don't recall what they were though.

General comments, things were a bit over salted for our tastebuds, but neither of us cook with or care for salt too much, also if you don't like/can't eat dairy, it may be a bit of a waste, pretty much everything has milk in it. If I was to go again, I'd get a slightly later reservation then we had and ask for a slow service. We were out of there in just over 2 hours. For a saturday night it was dead.

^^ Thanks for that. Very interesting. I'm hit or miss with dairy, so if I do go will ask them where they can tone it down somewhat (I'm generally good with desserts, ice creams, etc. but don't like cream-laden sauces. Butter is a different matter altogether and the more, the better)

I was thinking of going to Colborne Lane the other day but decided against it. Waiting for something like ten courses is a bit much for me and I'm not a vino connoiseur.

I slummed it at The Keg, and the Milestones, kept getting kicked out for last call at one place or another. Trying to talk my cousin into doing O Noir with me.

Liver is resting now out of guilt..