It’s a Con!

Down on King Street West is this old industrial building refashioned into a restaurant called Brassaii. Brassaii was the photographer whose pictures of Paris in the thirties burrowed beneath the city of light to discribe a haunting melancholy. On my way to Brassaii, I look forward to a nostalgic  French restaurant.

How wrong I am. Brassaii is a product of the disconnected age where words, names, images are thrown around like so much confetti, then pieced together arbitrarily to produce a concept that will catch the fitful eye of the roving consumer. The photographs are used as a come on – their mystery and allure promising something that is never delivered. Brassaii is your common or garden resto-lounge for the partying demographic loaded with plastic.

I am welcomed by a bevy of hostesses who are dressed as sex workers with skirts that stop at the crotch. They express unalloyed delight at my arrival, even though I must be the least desired type of customer,  and they have me escorted through a crowded lounge and bar to a large dining room where Spartan tables and chairs march along military style. I am seated beside a long table full of happy people. Even though the room is not very full, it is already noisy.

When I ask for another table, the maitre d’ couldn’t be more obliging. He has just the place. Brassaii it turns out sprawls throughout the building,  seating 140. You can get lost in it and my companion did before we meet at the new digs – the corridor between the bar and another party room, closed for the evening. However, we’re told it’s packed on weekdays 10 pm when the music goes nuclear and the whole place shakes.

Whew! But it’s quiet now, and we’re happy to have one of the few tables flanked by a bank of wine racks. Better still, the maitre d’ is  the precursor of excellent service. The waiter couldn’t be friendlier.  Moreover, once the maitre d’ has unlocked the wine racks and removed a 2005 Cline Mouverdre, $9 a glass, the evening grows rosier.

But our mood takes a dip when it comes to the food. We’ve come to sample the cooking of Bruce Woods, formerly of Centro. We’re surprised by the short menu, heavy on starters, blotting paper for an evening of drinking,  and taken aback by its execution. Poached white asparagus with Lyonnaise potatoes and Hollandaise $16 arrives fresh from the microwave, the asparagus is dry as straw and the Hollandaise puckers up on the plate, while the greasy potatoes can only be recognized by reference to the menu.  Beef carpaccio dumplings $15  are in fact rosettes of raw beef inadequately seasoned and accompanied by bland garnishes.

Worse is to come. Lobster wonton ravioli with black truffle and vanilla scented lobster bisque $ 24 is wishful thinking. The ravioli is thick and tough, and vary from hot to cold, the lobster shriveled. Kobe beef meatballs with toasted pine nuts and spiced Roma tomato sauce $20: the meatballs are overcooked and the sauce has never heard of a spice.

Dare we try a dessert $8? Can anybody fail with Warm sticky Toffee Pudding? The answer is yes.Roasted Banana Tart Tatin is gluey, and where’s the dulce in Dulce de Leche ice cream?

But we’re the only glum ones!  By nine, Brassaii is uproarious, the bar overwhelmed. The maitre d’ has to open the party room next to  us, and a train of  cocktail-toting guests sashay past us to an elegantly rustic dining table set with candles.

Fine. I don’t begrudge Brassaii’s marketability, but I do resent the way the owners Peter Tsebelis and Gus Giazitzidis have conned me.

Again.

The way I was conned by Buca, another of their restaurants. After a couple of visits last fall, I was blown away by the authentic rustic Italian menu – dishes like Gelatina Calabrese, aka brawn, grilled quail rubbed with lemon and fennel, panfried eel and savvy service. Others loved it too. But within a month, disappointed customers reported that Buca had changed. I went back a couple of times and found the cooking downgraded. Obviously, originality hadn’t sold.

A restaurateur has every right to change the menu. What sticks in my craw is the way the owners used the reviewers – selling a vision which they weren’t prepared to commit to.

A con.

*Brassaii 461 King St W, 416-598-4730 No Wheelchair Access. Dinner for two: food plus tax:  $103

Alan Bates or Anthony Quinn?

I’m embedded in a Mediterranean fish war. For more than thirty years, the Dalmatian Joso’s at Av/Dav has commanded the Avenue Road strait. But now there’s a challenger. The new Ionian Malena is just a couple of blocks South. It’s the ingredient that counts here.The battle is on for the freshest fish — weapon of choice is the grill.

Let the flames begin.

Malena is a charming clubby makeover of the old Pink Pearl, polished wood with a stunning silver wall and an inviting windowside ar. It is designed by Sam Kalogiros and David Minicucci who also own the neighbouring youthquake L’ Unita. Malena however is for adults, affluent Annex, low music, low lights, friendly service personified by Raffaele, the maitre d’. who’ s dressed down in jeans. The menu is concise if not quite Greek, but it’s the spirit which counts. Oysters from Rodney’s, Stone Crab claw from Florida – and a soft shell crab, $20, the seasonal queen of East coast crustaceans $20.There are several ways to cook these squashy leggy creatures and Chef Doug Niegel goes half-tempura, light crisp crust on wonderfully fresh crab which still has its tasty tomalley (yellow pancreas). Lucky because that’s sometimes removed for health reasons.

And now for an authentic tang of the Med: two little flat barges of marinated fresh sardines $13 carry shredded romaine topped by the crunch of pancetta with a dab of roaste d garlic cream. We are now sipping appreciatively a $45 bottle of lemony alberino (Via Latina). Malena’ s wine list starts very reasonably.

From the daily fish selection, we pick a hefty snapper $33 fragrantly grilled – a squeeze of lemon brings out every cell of taste. We’re not so lucky with Spot Prawn risotto $29, a dish from which taste actually recedes. The advertised cumin is hard to recognize and the spot prawn, demure compared to the big Gulfs with their algae driven iodine, is puzzlingly paired with another shy food, the subtle artichoke.

Dessert (all $8) is showgirl time – an astringent blood orange icecream draped in fennel marshmallow is terrific. The lemon phyllo tart is dazzling and too sweet. A sad shake of the head to walnut bread pudding, much too stodgy to accompany the truffle- infused sheep’s milk cheese.

Overall, we think, this is the kind of elegant metrosexual place that Alan Bates would have loved before he fell into the unbuttoned world of Zorba the Greek aka Anthony Quinn.

Which is what we do next. On a sunny Monday, we saunter over to Joso’s and avoiding the Rabelaisian ribaldry inside, settle for a table on the patio. Joso’ s has an effulgent menu well suited to its flamboyant personality. The classic tomato and mozzarella $14 is so fresh – who said you can’t find a good tomato this time of year? We follow that with Joso’ s famous inky spaghettini made with cuttle fish and squid ($15-24).

The main event. The waitress brings out the Fish Platter, a dozen raw fish from oyster to sea bream. After havering – we should eat Med – we say this is Toronto and order the Dover Sole from Holland. It’ s huge and a mere fifty bucks. A steal, but we know it’s the real thing because Fatima, the chef, shows me how the eyes are placed on the right of its flat head like the top of Herman Munster’s head.

Presentation is splendid, the fish deboned and laid out as two fine filets for us. The sole is burnished, tinctured with olive oil, and has a nicely chewy texture and it even has the hard roe, a treat from my childhood. It isn’ t the fault of the clams, shrimp and mussels that follow in a tomatoey sauce that they seem good but anti- climactic. The Big Fin always wins.

We are replete but our meal is not complete. We have an inspiriting Zorba moment. We’re joined by a wedding party. Happiness invades the patio now basking in sunshine. The couple are toasted with Ouzo, Prosecco is poured, the two waitresses bring out platters of shrimp, ink risotto, giant salads from the kitchen. We wonder when everyone will get up and dance and shall we join in? Slow Fade to Mediterranean sunset on the beach…

2 1/2 ** Malena, 120 Avenue Rd. 416.964.0606.No wheelchair access. Dinner for two: food plus tax $125 *** Joso’s 202 Davenport 416-925-1903. No wheelchair access. Food plus tax $137

For the Big Night Out….

Holy Eyjafjallajokull Batman! Word comes that the casual dining cloud now blanketing the city has buried the Grande Dames, the luxury tier of fine dining. You know the places where you dressed to code, splurged the plastic, celebrated anything, peddled influence, entertained those you feared, like your outlaws  – retro heaven.

It’s ok, the Grande Dames are still here,  core values almost intact. Dress code’s gone but service, décor, atmosphere, well padded rooms, a sense of entitlement survive. Food? think foie gras, caviar, tournedos, Dover sole…a fat wine bible.  GD diners want to be cosseted – they don’t dine to be surprised but to be reassured. The tab average is high, round $200 for dinner for two – food and tax. Wine? The GD wine list can run into thousands: reasonable and good can be hard to find.

A guide to GD dining (alphabetical order)

Auberge du Pommier 4150 Yonge 416.222.2220 French provincial, pretty and charming  is synonymous with GD dining, You leave North York behind when you dine under the yellow and white canopy, filtering  Edith Piaf and caretaker service. Jason Bangerter’s menu has  classic timelessness. Wild Bass poised on lentils dotted with foie gras  $36 is a fixture along with delectable tournedos on creamed cauliflower $43, plus poached lobster in a citrus mousseline $40. Prime customers: people who want to go to Paris.

The Fifth Grill and Terrace. 225 Richmond W. 416-979-3005

On top of an old industrial building, accessed by the original hand-operated elevator, open only three days a week -  The Fifth is unique Europosh. Funk morphs into elegance – fireside dining, a nostalgic piano player. The candlelit terrace bar is Muskoka downtown. Service is silky. Malossol (lightly salted) caviar with vodka is the signature $180 starter, a Chateaubriand for two $85, or slum with truffled Mac and Cheese, $24. Celeb magnate,  a must see for visitors. ChefJay Suppiah is now offering a four course prix fixe (French lite) for $48 .

Harbour Sixty Steak House, 60 Harbour St 416 777-2111

Once a jock stop renowned for giant steaks, Harbour Sixty has made itself over into a darkly glamourous dining room with twinkling Edison bulbs, the only sound  the quiet buzz of satisfied customers. A personal butler attends you. Steaks now vie with Chef Bruce Kowalchuk’s tender grilled octopus with fennel salad, Dover sole flown in Thursdays $69, Alaskan King crab/blue crab cakes $22,and  an amazing banana bread/chocolate croissant pudding $11. Great for stargazing the likes of Wayne Gretzky, and dangerous liaisons – Rahim Jaffer was nabbed for DUI after dealmaking and dining with Cachet Ladies. Who says a Grande Dame can’t be risqué?

One at the Hazelton Hotel 118 Yorkville Avenue 416 963-6300

The dining room for Toronto’s most exclusive boutique hotel is favoured by marquee names like George Clooney, Jennifer Anniston, Tony Blair. Vanity Fair atmosphere, patronized by those who want to see and be seen, Queen’s Park pols, business enchiladas, those ladies who still lunch. Stunning décor, walls of grey cow skin – downside, the room is noisy. Sidewalk café is a summer must for people-watching.  Attentive service. Andrew Ellerby’s kitchen has Canadian spin: Ontario grilled ribeye $58, Cocoa crusted Caribou $46. or the $29 burger with bbq pork belly.

Opus, 37 Prince Arthur, 416 921 3105

This is my first visit to Opus but it’s reputation for discreet splendour precedes it. Fave haunt of Hollywood bigshots at TIFF and buccaneering financiers. Welcome is warm. The room is prettily grey and muted. Service is caring. But Jason Cox’s food! Flavourless celeriac bisque $16, a soft shell crab $24, obliterated by peanut crust, dry chicken breast over a heavy tofu/chicken terrine $36. Then I get it. A young couple arrives, break out hand sanitizers, she gets on her cell, he buries his head in the wine bible (Opus was awarded the Wine Spectator’s 2009 Grand Award) and she says she’ll just have one thing. This is new GD core values.

Scaramouche, One Benvenuto Pl 416 961 8011

The Rosedale country club. Join the regulars in the Pasta Bar where you’ll be looked over as potential recruit, or you can take a seat on the upper level of the restaurant and bask in one of the city’s most scintillating views stretching over downtown Toronto to the lake. Service is smooth and Keith Froggett’s kitchen produces a reliably good menu of the usual GD suspects, foie gras terrine $26,1.5 lb lobster $46, 8 0z filet mignon $ 47. Save space for Joanne Yolles’  coconut pie $13. Perfect venue for Mother’s Day.

The bowl that opens like a lily holds a draught of the earth, a bronze  consommé garnished with parsnip puree and little chips of candied parsnip. This translucent distillation of roots is as hefty and satisfying a taste as a fine beef broth, the vegetables’ sweetness cut by a few floating brussel sprout leaves and a healthy addition of beer, seamlessly integrated as a supporting rather than dominating ingredient. This then is Cream Ale Consomme.

A great soup ($9). A terrific way to start the meal at L.A.B. or Live and Breathe which is nestled in the party animal strip of College West at Grace.  L.A.B. may be the first restaurant owned by a blogger. Howard Dubrovsky of Food Cult is an ardent vegetarian chef determined to take veggies out of the wan aisles of the health food store, snatch them back from the  dour “make ‘em eat grass” politicos, and  make them go taste for taste with mighty meat, put them in other words  spang in the heart of fine dining.

Dubrovsky and his co-owner, the chef Chris Scott, formerly of David Adjey Cuisine, along with The Design Group, have created a smart little boite from a storefront shoebox, a shaved brick wall girdled by white crown moulding on one side, on the other bright graffiti art. The thirty seats are anchored by the bar at the back framed by a line of big water bottles turned upside down and lit by, you guessed it, those sexy Edison double loops.

As for the food – well L.A.B. lives up to its other acronym. Larky, Adventuresome, Bold –   add geeky, a nod to molecular cuisine and – wholly engaging.

Being a skeptical carnivore, I feel ennui when I survey a menu dotted with cute faux meat titles. Why can’t a carrot be free to be a carrot? So I order without much hope the root vegetable “Calamari” $8. Wow. I eat my words with delight. A pile of absolutely irresistible deep fried rings of celeriac and parsley root arrive with deep saffron coloured tartare sauce and a shower of micro cilantro.

My pleasure continues. I never knew a perogie that didn’t sink like a stone in my gullet, but Scott, who handles most of the cooking, has made wafer-light and squishy sweet potato perogies $17,  garnished delectably with pickled watermelon, foxy grape sauce and fried sage.  No-Rhyme Risotto $18 makes no sense until you eat it. Then, another canny mingling of flavours  – the rice is delicate short grain, bright orange with sweet carrot, sprinkled with sparky cabernet sauvignon powder and decorated beguilingly with silver leaf.

Where’s the fish? I ask when served the vegetable ragout $18, a bouillabaisse broth fragrant with pernod and annatto oil but I forget its omission as I chow down on perfectly cooked  fingerling potatoes, fennel, and carrots and a little cone of gritty crumbs, the dehydrated provencal spicy sauce, rouille.

L.A.B. is atleast 40 percent meat. Most notably an 8-oz striploin, $27, cooked sous-vide for eight hours. Why? I would love to be fluent in thermodynamics which are as foreign to me as a credit default swap on a double-A tranche of a subprime backed collateralized debt obligation.  (Thank goodness no financier has taken to cooking). Anyway here goes.  The steak slung on the barbie is grilled at max heat, hauled off when timed for desired doneness.  Result, heavy charring, pink heart. Sous-vide is the reverse. The steak is grilled and seasoned,sealed in a plastic bag,  cooked at low heat. Result: a tender steak that is pink throughout. I have to add that sous vide isn’t fool-proof. Several restaurants use it but not always to L.A.B.’s standard.

L.A.B. also does something bracing to that faux beef, bison as both a spicy tartare and fine shavings of carpaccio $10 sparked with pickled mustard seeds.

Desserts are Dubrovsky’s patch: doubtfully I order Compressed Fruit $8  and confounded, luxuriate in dense blocks of melon marinated in a plastic bag of vanilla syrup with the most amazingly intense melon jus poured over it. I’m so bowled over by Malaysian curry ice cream that I almost overlook the accompanying apple/cheddar turnover $9. A Mayan Brownie $9 is full of chili threads which burn like muscles during  pilates, topped with micro fruit in hibiscus syrup.

Only problem. Now I love vegetables but – considering the growing discovery of plant allergies – I wonder if they love me.

*** L.A.B. Live and Breathe. 691 College 416-551-5025

No wheelchair access. Dinner for two, food plus tax: $110

SPAIN Also Rises

In January I was grousing about the paucity of good Spanish food in Toronto. Then I ate a great chile relleno at Chimichanga on Yorkville followed by a good paella at Embruja  Flamenco on the Danforth. Finally  I got an invitation I couldn’t refuse – a paella and  Ontario wine tasting at Cava, Chris McDonald’s tapas bar in DeLisle Court and I happily ate my words. Spanish food is on the rise here. Cava’s paella – duck, snails, savoy cabbage, chorizo dotting fluffy bomba rice fragrant with garlic and saffron -  was so good that it sent me back to the restaurant for another meal.  Restaurant reviewing is a first impression business. But as I’ve learned, it’s the second impression that really counts when a place has time to fulfil, or not, its potential.

I wasn’t very enthusiastic about Cava back in 2007. I wasn’t sold on tapas as a meal, and irritated by having to wave for the waiter to translate the menu.  What a difference a few years make. Shaking the kaleidoscope, the disparate components of Cava have come together as an impressive whole. It was a restaurant that was ahead of its time – now shared plates are ubiquitous and charcuterie the rave. Don’t forget that’s a recent phenom. To put things in perspective, two years ago Manhattan superchef Daniel Boulud visiting Toronto asked me “Oh do you have charcuterie here?” Do bears like honey?

As far as location goes, Cava exemplifies what may be the best advice ever -  “Got a lemon, make lemonade.”  A mini mall isn’t the most cheerful place and the space’s low ceiling magnifies noise. At first an uninviting cave. But tonight the cave is made warm and welcoming, a refuge from the city, and McDonald exudes welcome from a bar backed by an array of hams.

The food too is self-confident, a fanciful spin on Spain -  including the newly introduced paella, for two or more $23 per person,  and tripe Basquaise $13, and smoothly executed by Doug Penfold whose kitchen has gained a rep  for consistency. True I still need the waiter’s help with “anticuccho” (skewers) and I almost ordered  “albigondas”, which sounded so exotic until I learned it meant meatballs, but I’ve mellowed out and accept the lingo as a charming idiosyncrasy. Anyway  do I have to know exactly what I’m going to eat?  I know what to expect from French food, joy hoist on iron technique, Italian food, nostalgie de la boue, but Spanish food like Spain is still an enigma, an adventure. The waiter’s great – knowledge,advice about wine and cheese at his fingertips.

We start with a crisp Terra Alta white and a snack: pinchos of gamay-poached foie gras with pear mustard $6.75, a thick slice of terrine on crisp baguette with a subtle pear flavour spiked with just a little mustard. Then we gild the lily with a plate of Cava Charcuterie $16.50,   Genoese salami, chunky spicy chorizo, a purple duck braesola (air dried) and –more foie gras, this time whipped up with chicken livers into a sublime mouthful. The garnishes are right on – pickled spring onions and jalapenos.

The next plate to slide into view is a pale Japanese eggplant  chopped into chunks, fried and plunked into a sweet honey and slightly sour tomatillo sauce, matched with a couple of strips of creamy queso cheese given a whiff of fish from sprinkled bonito flakes. $8.75.An inspiriting combination of flavours and textures.

The cauliflower and kabocha squash tagine with medjool dates and Spanish saffron makes spoonfuls of sweet mash, a good set up for the surprise of the evening: amazingly juicy venison on a skewer $9.75 on a bed of crunchy red cabbage. For myself, I’d have liked a gamier taste to the venison which has the blandness of  un-hung game, but it is superbly tender.

Can’t leave without a sweet from Xoxocava, McDonald’s  chocolate shop right next door. At the paella feast we ate icecream studded with candied Seville oranges. I’m glad to say Dessert tapas $9 doesn’t let us down at all- small deep fried donuts with a melting cream heart and raspberry compote, a little candied ginger shell embracing icecream made from milk chocolate, prunes, and powerfully rich sherry, not to mention a brownie with wild blueberry sauce.

Great return match.

***Cava, 1560 Yonge St, 416-979-9918. Wheelchair accessible. Dinner for two, six dishes plus tax $76. Top yums for bucks.

Love’s Labours Lost

Restaurants breed like rabbits along Ossington, the city’s newest and unlikeliest restaurant row. Why it seems like only yesterday that Ossington, below College, was a hub of Vietnamese crime. Reporting on a shootout in a pho house I recall a plain clothesman giving me a crime tour of Oz, stopping only for a Vietnamese coffee in a caffe where the cop pointed out which of the customers were carrying a piece. Even now you may well stumble over yellow police tape as you as  you make  your way to such hip joints as Café Libretto, Foxley, Delux, Union. Just cross your fingers and hum luck be a lady tonight.

The entrepreneurs behind the LeVack Block resto lounge, Adam Baguely and designer Amber Honor Elson have now opened Paramour right next door. Paramour is a typical neighbourhood place,  a thirty  seater  shoebox decorated with thrift shop gentility, add a friendly bar and avid service under the command of former Splendido staffer Adly Gawad. The menu is short and to the point. Ditto wine list. We weren’t knocked out by the originality of the fare, my eyes glaze over at sight of one more goat cheese and beet salad – a dish which should be retired from all menus on the grounds of extreme triteness. Once sweet beets knew their place – pickled in a jar – but now they’re winter stars enabling our insatiable sweet teeth which isn’t good news to my companion who is now revealed as an endangered eater. She has allergies/food intolerances. Anything too sweet causes hives. She usually packs  a refractomater to test the veg. A refractometer measures the brix in veg. Brix equals sugar equals flavour. Like  great Sauternes, the sweeter the beet the more intensely flavoured.

Now a delicate Hokkaido scallop sliced thricely and placed around a little mound of julienned roots including mustardy celeriac does very nicely as the Crudo starter ($13). Roasted corn and Jalapeno hush puppies $10 dipped in chipotle mayonnaise are puffy refreshers. Particularly good garnish, a skinned deseeded jalapeno which tastes like the freshest green bean.

The second courses are more problematic. Isn’t $30 a hefty price tag for a lamb shank? The plate poises the shank, which has some way to go to achieve the desired velvetiness, on parmesan polenta and sautéed swiss chard and crispy sage leaves. OMG, my companion cries, I’m allergic to sage!  Nausea follows the first bite. The waiter assures her that the offending sage can be removed. No harm done. Word from the kitchen, Laura Malina, formerly of JK Gardiner,  is reassuring. The sage hasn’t been used in preparation. Any other allergies I ask. Tarragon. Severe respiratory problems after Bearnaise sauce. Lettuce!  The most innocent organic lettuce leaf has the potential of a weapon of mass destruction. Who knew that veg are the greatest danger on edgy Oz tonight.

I turn with relief to my New York Strip Loin au Jus  $27. Beef’s always been a friend. But what a plate! Now steak is sacred food. Steak demands protocol. It is the star of a meal and should be so treated. A pat of butter on the top, perhaps a watercress leaf or two, maybe a small grilled tomato gratin. You cut the meat yourself to the size you want. You want sides? Order em separately. But here the steak is just a lump of meat, not rare enough, and incompetently hacked into chunks. It is almost overwhelmed by Ermite (blue) cheese bread pudding, a mass of sautéed rapini under which is hidden a yellowish potato. It looks like a dog’s dinner. Even so I bet a gourmet dog would turn it down. I bet the Queen’s corgis would take a look and kick it back. “Elizabeth, we’ve told you before, we’re IAMS dogs.”

We end with a couple of just ok desserts: a super rich chocolate terrine and an apple and cardomom pastry. We barely finish them when the bill and our coats appear tableside. Timing is obviously a problem at weekends in a small restaurant. We were told to come early or late. Unwisely we picked early. Although the restaurant was cheerlessly empty until 7.30 we were given a busy table right by the kitchen door. I hate to think it was because we were two women dining. After the restaurant started filling up, we were hurried out at 8. Bad manners.

* Paramour 94 Ossington 416- 953 2356 No Wheelchair access. Dinner: food and tax for two: $111

Has New York anything to teach Toronto? See previous post

Snack Me

Ok, we all know that food reshapes us individually. But a report in the current issue of Nature tells how researchers poring over the human genome  are hypothesizing that human evolution itself is being significantly influenced by Some scientists are arguing that even more than famine dusease climatethese geno- cultural forces are the dominant mode of human evolution. Imagine, the burger is shaping the world!

Cut to the kids. The plaint is that they are now serial snackers, turning down the solid food which is “so good for you.” Now we know. They have the snacker gene. And they got it from the bossy adults. Sure adults have gone along with three squares a day for convention’s sake, but more and more they reveal themselves as snackers – in a preference for a couple of  appetizers over a second course, in the growing and cementing preference for the shared/small plate. The only thing holding back full snacker rebellion is the price of the meal. Many diners still want to see their dollarsworth in the amount of food on the plate – rather than in its quality and delight.

The proof of  theory is in the eating. Where else but Lee? This will be the first time I’ve reviewed Lee which opened in 2004 and thus before my time. Lee is the pulsing heart of the ever expanding Susur Lee empire. It’s the lab for all the experiments that have migrated to Madeline’s next door, to Shang in New York, Zentan in Washington, to Chinois Susur’s new place in Singapore.  Lee is haute snack.

Lee is  a deep crimson gambling den of a café with enchanting shadowy parrots parading along the walls. Inside, it’s all about business, a canteen configuration designed for customers to the max. I’ve never managed to sit against the wall where the light’s better and always end up in the well of the restaurant. Another beef while I’m at it, the reservation limitations. I don’t like being told I can only eat at 6.30 or 8. 30 and each time I sulk, and almost say forget it. But I don’t.Fact is Lee has  wonderful food – and even more significantly,it’s maintained the gold standard for six long years.

The menu is bare bones. Soup, Veg & Salad, Fish, Meat. The dishes are all designed to be shared and to be eaten in any order. We unpack the little porcelain tray which holds the napkin and cutlery, and before we know it, our first selection is infront of us. Service here is no slouch. We share four salty shrimps $21, crack the shells  in our mouths after dipping them in a cooling cucumber sauce.  Then a plate of four healthily pink lamb shops arrive, garnished with fried bananas, green curry lentils,  chili mint, carrot cardamom and coconut chutney $24. Could have done with double the amount of the garnishes. The coup de grace is the duck confit roll, a sumptuous medley of flavours, spiced nuts, hydrated pineapple topped with a blob of goat cheese $19. I usually find  preserved duck a stolid dish but these little nuggets of caramelized duck meat are irresisistible, bathed in a deep brown nug-fragrant sauce.

I realize I’ve now eaten more than I usually do – yet I’m not full. My guess is that small helpings, the snacks perk you up rather than satiating the senses. My hunch is that we’ve always been snackers struggling to shake off the bourgeois convention of the three squares a day which like the three act play was designed to wring order from chaos to suit the demands of the industrial world.  First a sparkling appetizer, second, a testing exploration of themes, finally, denoument (a good pastry chef). Both were shrunk versions of epic originals (Careme’s huge banquets, Shakespeare’s evening-long plays) and designed to illustrate the accepted arc of life, passages rounded with a little sleep.

But now our lives are like fever charts, the jogging needle of unpredictability which asks for constant stimulation and nutrition. My head vibrates. Snack Me says my brain.

Will this do? A pretty lacy little bowl made from rice noodles which holds sautéed jerk chicken tossed in Scotch bonnet, the blowtorch chili, sauce with ginger and mango puree $17. We have two mouthfuls apiece. Perfect.

***Lee 603 King W. 416-504 7867 no wheelchair access. Dinner for two plus tax – four dishes $104. Lee is now open for lunch.

China’s Sanlian Life Weekly magazine is publishing online Gina Mallet’s “The birth of a superchef and the art of fusion”, about Susur Lee.  http://www.lifeweek.com.cn/

. But a report in the current issue of Nature tells how researchers poring over the human genome  are hypothesizing that human evolution itself is being significantly influenced by Some scientists are arguing that even more than famine dusease climatethese geno- cultural forces are the dominant mode of human evolution. Imagine, the burger is shaping the world!

Cut to the kids. The plaint is that they are now serial snackers, turning down the solid food which is “so good for you.” Now we know. They have the snacker gene. And they got it from the bossy adults. Sure adults have gone along with three squares a day for convention’s sake, but more and more they reveal themselves as snackers – in a preference for a couple of  appetizers over a second course, in the growing and cementing preference for the shared/small plate. The only thing holding back full snacker rebellion is the price of the meal. Many diners still want to see their dollarsworth in the amount of food on the plate – rather than in its quality and delight.

The proof of  theory is in the eating. Where else but Lee? This will be the first time I’ve reviewed Lee which opened in 2004 and thus before my time. Lee is the pulsing heart of the ever expanding Susur Lee empire. It’s the lab for all the experiments that have migrated to Madeline’s next door, to Shang in New York, Zentan in Washington, to Chinois Susur’s new place in Singapore.  Lee is haute snack.

Lee is  a deep crimson gambling den of a café with enchanting shadowy parrots parading along the walls. Inside, it’s all about business, a canteen configuration designed for customers to the max. I’ve never managed to sit against the wall where the light’s better and always end up in the well of the restaurant. Another beef while I’m at it, the reservation limitations. I don’t like being told I can only eat at 6.30 or 8. 30 and each time I sulk, and almost say forget it. But I don’t.Fact is Lee has  wonderful food – and even more significantly,it’s maintained the gold standard for six long years.

The menu is bare bones. Soup, Veg & Salad, Fish, Meat. The dishes are all designed to be shared and to be eaten in any order. We unpack the little porcelain tray which holds the napkin and cutlery, and before we know it, our first selection is infront of us. Service here is no slouch. We share four salty shrimps $21, crack the shells  in our mouths after dipping them in a cooling cucumber sauce.  Then a plate of four healthily pink lamb shops arrive, garnished with fried bananas, green curry lentils,  chili mint, carrot cardamom and coconut chutney $24. Could have done with double the amount of the garnishes. The coup de grace is the duck confit roll, a sumptuous medley of flavours, spiced nuts, hydrated pineapple topped with a blob of goat cheese $19. I usually find  preserved duck a stolid dish but these little nuggets of caramelized duck meat are irresisistible, bathed in a deep brown nug-fragrant sauce.

I realize I’ve now eaten more than I usually do – yet I’m not full. My guess is that small helpings, the snacks perk you up rather than satiating the senses. My hunch is that we’ve always been snackers struggling to shake off the bourgeois convention of the three squares a day which like the three act play was designed to wring order from chaos to suit the demands of the industrial world.  First a sparkling appetizer, second, a testing exploration of themes, finally, denoument (a good pastry chef). Both were shrunk versions of epic originals (Careme’s huge banquets, Shakespeare’s evening-long plays) and designed to illustrate the accepted arc of life, passages rounded with a little sleep.

But now our lives are like fever charts, the jogging needle of unpredictability which asks for constant stimulation and nutrition. My head vibrates. Snack Me says my brain.

Will this do? A pretty lacy little bowl made from rice noodles which holds sautéed jerk chicken tossed in Scotch bonnet, the blowtorch chili, sauce with ginger and mango puree $17. We have two mouthfuls apiece. Perfect.

***Lee 603 King W. 416-504 7867 no wheelchair access. Dinner for two plus tax – four dishes $104. Lee is now open for lunch.

A ‘cept too crazy

I’d have loved to be a fly on the wall when developer Jeff O’Brien and Anthony Miceli of the  Uniq Lifestyle Group were blueskying  the Roosevelt Room.  This new supper club in the city’s dmz aka entertainment ghetto started out as a lavish tribute to Hollywood in the twenties, and the art deco style of Hollywood’s Roosevelt Hotel,with food  inspired by the first Oscar dinner which was given at the hotel in 1927.

This is such a cockamamie idea that I can’t believe there wasn’t someone on the team who didn’t cry “push the reset button”.  First, the name. When I heard it I thought what’s a glitzy joint being named after Franklin D of depression fame. Was this to be a Hooverville serving shantytown food?

Now if the owners had filched the name Stork it would have been different . The Stork Club of the forties was the paradigm of the genre – “the New Yorkiest of all New York restaurants” wrote Walter Winchell, café society scribe.  Its owner Sherman Billingsley had his own room for glitterati, dubbed the Cub room or the snub room depending on  your status. In the movie All About Eve, a scene was shot in the Cub room and  Bette Davis,  playing a great Broadway star, immortalized it with her line “Where the elite meet.”

I’ve have certainly shouted reset at the idea of twenties’ food. Prohibition had killed fine dining. The Oscar dinner featured fillet of sole or chicken on toast. There was no booze of course. But I expect everyone was pretty liquored up with bootleg Scotch.

“We’re not going to eat fruit cocktails with marshmallows are we?” said the Bon Vivant anxiously as we arrive. Before confronting the menu however, we have to confront the pushme pullyou space, about half an acre which can be reconfigured to suit  and which holds the humongous total of 450 people. The Design Agency has done a remarkable job making the place coherent with dazzling strips of lighting and chunky furniture. Even so, the Roosevelt room has a transient air as if it could be struck like a tent at a moment’s notice.

We arrive around 7.30 because we’ve been told to eat early before the live music arrives and the dining spaces are turned into dance floors and the booths into bottle tables. We enter through the bar, now being propped up by a few habitués, and are then led past a curtained dining area which looks like an adhoc room in a tourist hotel, to a more elegant area with zippier lighting.

There we dine in state – and entirely alone. We love it.

Champagne juleps seem in order $12.18. Now to the menu. Someone did apparently push back because executive chef Trevor Wilkinson, who has his own eponymous restaurant, has put together a familiar luxe menu designed for those with bounceproof plastic.

As we order, we ask our friendly waiter how long the place has been open. His reply deserves the Distinguished Service Order. The Roosevelt Room has been open atleast two months, it’s taken a bit of a pasting in the press and on the blogs, but he says straightfaced that it’s now having a soft opening with a big party planned for March.

I have the torchon of foie gras $17.95 with toasted brioche and it’s just fine. Bon Vivant is not so lucky with the braised rabbit and pancetta tagliatelle $15.95 with white truffle oil and shaved reggiano – “Not enough truffle, not enough butter, not rich enough”.

And  the lobster thermidor $35.95, an ultra luxe food, where chopped lobster in Mornay sauce is served in the lobster shell, is merely a dish of a few lobster chunks with bitter greens in sauce. No drama, too little lobster.

I do better with USDA prime filet $31.95 cooked rare, served with roasted roots. We look for something flambéed and find Baked Alaska $14.95 a crown of blue flames over cascading meringue jacketing ice cream with a berry heart. The blood orange tart was rather an anticlimax $8.95.

As we leave, we catch the silent flick on the screen. Someone called Marie appears to be shouting for help. Reset, we want to cry – with the unedited single shot of Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell tapdancing…

*The Roosevelt Room 2 Drummond Place, 416-599 9000. Wheelchair Access. Dinner for Two: food plus tax $148

Up in the Supper Club

Is Up In the Air prescient or what? When George Clooney wanders off alone at the end, was he confirming the trend to anomie?

To find out I drop in on Ciao, the new supper club on Yorkville, right opposite the Hazelton Hotel. The supper club genre, an all-in-one-experience, a big, loud entertainment centre  with food and drink thrown in, seems made for George Clooney’s character, a guy who chalks up l0 million miles in the air, flying the country as a firing facilitator, never stopping anywhere long enough to stick.

Ciao, the brainchild of The Liberty Grand Entertainment Group which has brought the city Spice Route, Rosewater, Splash, Courthouse,  places where it’s easy to forget yourself, is plenty smart. Unlike Flow, the previous tenant of 133 Yorkville, which had an LED projection which kept changing the colour of the façade, Ciao’s exterior is elegant and dark with tiny red pilot lights. Inside, I am confronted with one of the most convoluted spaces in any restaurant, a choice of three floors– I almost need a GPS to get me to the right place.

If I turn right after I enter, I am in the bar with a two story backdrop reflecting the red and black motif and three large plasma screens (showing Good Fellas but real Italian cinema is promised later on).    Or I can walk down to the wine cellar which is now the  pizza parlour and opens on weekends for the GTA’s  avid pizza fans. Luckily the Maitre D is a good traffic cop , and after he’s said “Ciao”, he points me  to the right, up a winding stair to the dining floor. As I do so I pass diners in a nook. It’s all very busy.

We’re seated on the banquette that runs down the centre of what might be the top deck of a cruise ship – choicest spots for people watching – against the rails. The décor is becomingly dark with soft lighting, a twinkle of red here and there, Huge vases have been turned upside down and hung with Edison lights.  The DJ is tucked away round the corner, spinning Euro-music to chill out by. The staff is dressed by Diesel. The atmosphere is moody. We were skeptical when we came in, expecting a superficial format, but now we’re impressed by the smooth professionalism.

We skim through the stylish menu, umber cardboard, skipping the full page of pizzas, hopping over all the  favourites,  the page of pastas, insalate, salumeria and alight on  antipasto. Right there is deepfried zucchini flowers stuffed with ricotta and parmigiano $12, but we didn’t notice the words seasonal. Too bad. Instead we have baked artichokes stuffed with parmigiano and Italian parsley, seasoning is just right if there are rather too many breadcrumbs $11. The perfect slivers of beef carpaccio $16 are garnished with arugula and shavings of parmigiano.

There are only two second courses, both change daily. The fish today is a dish of mussels, clams, shrimp, the most delicate calamari, some white fish all in a hot spicy tomato ragu $26. The alternative is lamb, three generous chops, $25, deliciously pink with superb potatoes, marvelously fluffy in their roasted skins. Grilled fennel and peppers are pungent counterpoints and so is the hot pepper pickle condiment.

We raise our glasses of Wayne Gretzky Chardonnay $11 (not quite a slapshot from the Great One)to an excellent dinner and to the chef, Roberto Punzo, a longtime veteran of local restaurants and most recently owner of his own eponymous catering company. We have to look over desserts – one seems particularly tempting, semifreddo with cool frangelico zabaglione and berries. Better still, it’s superb.

Ciao covers three demographics, according to my count –  twentysomethings for pizza, the middleaged for dining,  guys for the bar.  There’s nothing wrong with this businesslike approach to pleasing the public – and yet it seems a little coldblooded.  The food here is quite a lot better and no more expensive than several neighbourhood restaurants I’ve been to, and yet the local restaurants have been more engaging. A good dinner isn’t just good cooking, it’s an idea spun by an individual, warts and all, and whose personality influences the eater’s enjoyment. Such communication is energizing. It’s very restful to relax in such a bland enviro as Ciao’s.  I feel good as I leave but I also feel rather like a robot.

Ciao 133 Yorkville 416-925-2143 No wheelchair access Two stars for food. Dinner for two plus tax $100

Scrooge’s Roast Goose

Toronto in Dickensian mood. The skies are lowering, the wind cruel, bottle pickers roam the streets for unreturned wine bottles, a few hoodies sprawl across the tables in the food mall. The malls have banned the Salvation Army’s bells, but outside Holt’s, the Sallyann’s brass band is playing some Mendelsohn,  Hark the Herald Angels Sing, while along Bloor, the Church of the Redeemer is advertising a reading of A Christmas Carol. All that’s missing is Tiny Tim’s Roast Goose.

Hmm. A problem. Since the demise of the once thriving Hungarian strip on Bloor between Spadina and Bathurst, notably the deli, Elizabeth, goose has been a rare treat downtown. But now I’ve found goose on a menu. C 5 at the Royal Ontario Museum is offering a Holiday Menu — $66 for three courses including Roast Goose.

As I make my way to C5, I ponder the goose. Roast/braised goose is many Europeans’ Yuletide feast and and before the age of the mass produced turkey, the English preferred it too. The hospitably large turkey is Toronto’s overwhelming favourite says Marlon Pather of The Butchers, but he adds “Goose is getting more popular.” Not Canada geese! He is expecting a few choice Pilgrim Geese from Elora, among other imports.

Like a duck, the goose is mostly bones and its darkling meat is strong almost gamey,  because unlike those wusses, chicken and turkey, it flies. Delicious fat pours from it. My parents penned a few geese, dreaming of roast goose stuffed with foie gras and prunes, garnished with crimson cabbage and chestnuts – the acme of a feast – only to come up against reality. Geese are rural gangsters. They broke out and terrorized the village,  trampling cabbage patches, hissing menacingly.

When I arrive at C5, I discover the goose is still a spoiler. Ted Corrado, the chef, has a sad tale to tell. The goose is off the menu because he was dissatisfied with the quality. I swallow my disappointment. In holiday spirit we make up our own festive dinner.  First we nibble a ricotta cheese roll with smoked butter. The smoker is the fad du jour. The smoked mackerel rillette with flat bread is a crowd pleaser. Then we have a superb seafood plate: a scallop with sea urchin, smoked mackerel with strings of beet coloured cabbage, ceviche shrimp and a tender chunk of octopus tentacle.

We sample goose’s replacement, tender enough pieces of pheasant but the flavour comes from the rich dollop of black pepper hollandaise on top. The accompaniments are fine:  prune bread pudding, potato hash and ginger cabbage. But for festive eating, nothing beats the pan fried fresh foie gras and chunk of rare squab corn with manchego tamale, poblano pepper, and a reduction of peach and tequila.  Dessert is good too: a spiced Yule log, a brittle tube stuffed with chestnut mousse and adorned with piquant blood orange sorbet.

We admire Corrado and his chef de cuisine Luigi Encarnacion for exquisitely rendered pointillist cooking – a lot of complexity in a small package. Corrado reminds me of the chef Marcus Eaves of L’Autre Pied in London, a one Michelin star place, where intricate combinations come in even smaller packages. The eater must concentrate, pause, eat more, contemplate. This isn’t intended to be a blow-out – it’s an attenuated experience, each mouthful savoured.

The service is prompt and informative. Full disclosure, our dinner was comped because of the change in menu, the computer breakdown which prevented reservations, and other problems.

‘Tis the season to be uncritical, but my inner Scrooge cannot ignore the shoddy way  ROM treats C 5. Communications are a mess. The website isn’t updated. Don’t even try calling the restaurant: a voice message tells you they’re on the other line. I left my number and forgettaboutit. First excuse was that the computer was down. But when I called to check prices after the dinner, I had the same problem.

There’s only one elevator, the restaurant’s dedicated entrance is sometimes closed. We came in separately through the museum entrance. Two guards wanted to inspect my 5×8 inch purse! Atleast the elevator took me to the fifth floor. My companion was told to take another elevator to the fourth floor, then climb the stairs. The fourth floor was so crowded he couldn’t find the stairs.

Funny but sad too.

** and a half stars.C 5 at the Royal Ontario Museum, 100 Queen’s Park. 416 586 7928 wheelchair accessible.  Menus change daily. Holiday Menu with tax  $150 for two.