Showing posts with label lobster. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lobster. Show all posts

Cafe Lunette (Halifax)


Visiting Halifax in July means a greater chance of good weather and lobster season. The time when these tasty crustaceans are at their prime and the reason Café Lunette offered a special Ooh La Lobster ($54) three-course menu.

But to start, an oyster ($3) to sample Nova Scotia’s array of seafood. It had a sweet finish, the restaurant using a lemon herb mignonette studded with chives, which wasn’t too pungent and just lightly flavoured the oyster.

It was a much better starter than the lobster bisque that had a bitter aftertaste. At first, I thought the bitterness stemmed from the Pernod, an anise liqueur, used in the soup but finally tracked it down to the crackers of all things. Once you scoop those out, the remaining soup was a bit salty but edible and incorporated a lot of lobster throughout.

The lobster spaghetti uses thicker strands of pasta and sauce, so everything sticks together well. The spaghetti had a great chewiness and while it doesn’t look like there’s a lot of lobster, the seafood was cut into small chunks and sprinkled throughout so each bite had a bit of lobster. It was a great main.

You can see the seafood in the truffled lobster and mushroom roll, but the truffle oil was too overpowering. I only had one bite and already my mouth was flooded with so much flavour that I can’t imagine having an entire sandwich. If you love decadence, you’ll want to try the lobster roll.

No lobster was used in the dessert but there was seaweed in the lemon posset. While it’s an interesting maritime addition, the seaweed does add an earthiness to the posset that’s an acquired taste. The consistency of the dessert was nice, almost like a panna cotta but thinner since it doesn’t incorporate gelatin.

The sea salt caramel crème brûlée was very rich and somehow both very sweet and salty. It’s a bit much on its own but when combined with the lemon posset the tanginess earthiness of that counteracts the flavours of the crème brûlée nicely so we ended up eating the desserts together.

Café Lunette’s cute atmosphere made us feel like we wanted to stay there and chat forever, the dining room is open and airy but there’s still a sense of privacy as ample space is given between tables. They are also so friendly – much like Halifax’s general populace – our waiter coming by to say goodbye as they were handing off shifts for the evening. We had a wonderful night and what a sad ending when we finally had to bid the café and its delicious lobsters au revoir

In a nutshell... 
  • Must order: lobster spaghetti or oysters
  • Just skip: lobster bisque

Overall mark - 7.5 out of 10


How To Find Them
 Location: Halifax, Canada
 Address: 1741 Lower Water Street


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Gastro World's Grading System

  • Anything under 5 - I really disliked and will never go back
  • 6 - decent restaurant but I likely won't return
  • 7 - decent restaurant and I will likely return
  • 8 - great restaurant that I'd be happy to recommend
  • 9 - fantastic restaurant that I would love to visit regularly and highly recommend
  • 10 - absolute perfection!


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Kappo Sato (Toronto)


Have a glance at Toronto’s Michelin list and you’ll find a host of Japanese restaurants earning stars, including Sushi Masaki Saito who claimed the city’s only two-star ranking. Give it a year or two, but I sense the newly opened Kappo Sato will join the list as well.

Like the other contenders, Kappo Sato serves an omakase menu offered at two price points, $260 and $320, the later includes an additional sashimi platter and sake steamed fish. Both courses, while delicious, weren’t the highlight of my meal, so if you have a dainty appetite the $260 option will leave you satisfied.

With sixteen courses, the $320 omakase left me pleasantly full. To start, pieces of skinless fried eggplant that were nice and creamy. Although, it would be even better served warm, especially when topped with cold uni and caviar. Paired with cubes of sweet poached lobster, the “small” seasonal dish was wonderfully decadent, just a taste of the things to come.

More uni followed in the appetizer platter. In this case, the sea urchin mixed with yuba or thin sheets of soy that’s formed in the tofu making process. The two are a good combination, the silkiness of the tofu skin glides across the tongue capturing the flavourful savoury gelee while mixed with the creamy uni. The wasabi adds a spike of spice that’s surprisingly powerful for the miniscule portion of the condiment.

The cool yuba complimented the hot fried tile fish, a bite of meaty whitefish with crunchy deep-fried scales. The fish is cooled down with grated radish and a carefully split snap pea garnishes the dish for colour.

Sato’s sashimi course is very different, the fish adorned with other ingredients rather than leaving the seafood plain. The sea eel was topped with plum paste and tangy sisho flower and the lean 10-day aged tuna with Japanese mountain yam and egg yolk. Some of it works - like the plum paste and sisho flower – adding a refreshing element to the fish, others don’t - like the whipped mountain yam and egg yolk – creating something with the consistency of slime.

The nyumen or soup course features a bowl of dashi filled with silky delicious somen noodles. The slice of sea bream was good, but I found its softness too close to the texture of the noodles and would have liked a protein that had some bite or crunch.

We’re told what makes kappo cooking different is that the chef cooks in front you, rather than preparing ingredients in a behind-the-scenes kitchen and merely assembling dishes at the counter. The tempura course highlights the concept best as each of the three items were individually fried and presented.

Three condiments - lemon, salt, and ponzu – provides flavour to the tempura. Don’t worry, you’ll be given instructions on what to use with each item. We’re told to use the lemon and salt for half of the sweet young swordfish and then the ponzu for the second half. They should be more specific on which side of the fish to use each on as the ponzu would have better masked the slight bitterness of the head, while the lemon and salt would let the freshness of the body and tail portion shine. Sadly, I swapped the two.  

Seasonal vegetables of asparagus and fava beans follow, both just cooked through and paired nicely with the ponzu.  

Yet it’s the finisher that really excites, a meaty raw-in-the-middle scallop wrapped in sisho leaf that’s sweet and fragrant. It does need to be drained longer so the batter remains crispy, and I’d suggest sprinkling the salt on (rather than dipping the scallop into the salt) to avoid having it slide out of the tempura coating.

Kappo Sato sets up the meal with a host of video worthy shots, the first being the broiled smoked dish where a gleaming dome was filled with smoke and the cover removed table side. Despite all the fume, the flavours just singed the fish with a smoky essence, the centre of bonito and tuna still tasted neutral.

We’re told the tuna is a lean variety, but it’s so nicely marbled that it can match any otoro, flooding my mouth with a sweet richness. Crispy arrow root chips are given to help cleanse the palette but could easily make for an addictive tv-side snack.

Like the sashimi, Sato’s sushi were beautiful flavourful bites, the bluefish topped with shallot, scallion, and wasabi with the rice nicely warmed. Personally, I would tone down shallot as it was a tad pungent for the fish, nonetheless it was still tasty.

The saba hand roll was served taco style, the rice and fish sandwiched between sisho and crispy seaweed. Another inventively flavourful dish that’s different from what you’d normally receive. It’d be even better if there was a bit of glaze put onto the mackerel.

Sitting in a sweetened vinegar, the mozuku seaweed was silky and reminded me of fat choi but milder and more delicate. It made for a refreshing palette cleanser before the richer grilled unagi, which was lightly brushed with a sweet and savoury glaze. Slightly crispy around the edges, the freshwater eel went nicely with the sansho pepper leaf and wasabi.

If there was any alcohol used in the sake-steamed red snapper it must have evaporated in the cooking process as there wasn’t much flavour to the fish and napa cabbage. Hence, the dish really relied on the house-made ponzu dipping sauce. I like the concept of the dish, but it could have been pulled out of the oven earlier as the fish was a tad overdone.

Two types of tofu follow, the first featured in the cold dish and made with sesame so it had a rich nutty essence. The addition of Sakura, mushroom, and dried shrimp makes for a fragrant bite, although I did find the dried shrimp a bit overpowering with the tofu.  

The second traditional soy tofu sat under a mound of lightly cooked wagyu in a beef consommé. I normally love wagyu but being poached in broth doesn’t do it justice as everything merely tastes oily. My friend described it best as saying it’s like having a non-crispy bacon soup. Should they want to keep it in slices, rolling the beef around asparagus, enoki, or white chives would have been a better choice.



I kept eyeing the copper domes sitting on cooking elements by our counter. Its contents were finally revealed in our last savoury course as the seafood pot-cooked rice. Just close your eyes and inhale as the cover is lifted as the sweet seafood aroma of cooked crustaceans is so intoxicating.

Cooked with dashi the sticky rice became fluffy but still firm, almost like a drier risotto. Studded with clams, rehydrated shrimp, and fish the rice was already teeming with seafood essence but made even richer with a generous portion of ikura (salmon roe). At Kappo Sato you won’t leave hungry because a second helping of rice is available and offered. This was all washed down with a hot mild miso soup.

Just save room for dessert as all three courses were delicious. Firstly, a slice of musk melon that’s so sweet and refreshing. Its sweetness is contrasted by a glass of hot tea that’s so wonderful to sip on after a filling meal.

All the while, an ice cream machine sits on the counter whirling around and holding the second dessert, a freshly made soymilk ice cream. The cold soft serve was paired with azuki bean paste and a matcha shortbread cookie. While there’s a light sweetness to the dish, we’re given a tiny vessel of brown sugar syrup to add to the soymilk dessert to our liking. Use it, I love how it enhanced the bean and ice cream’s flavours.

To end, a strawberry daifuku that’s a mound of azuki with sweet strawberry pieces topped with a delicate sheet of soft mochi. Savour the single kuromame, a sweet black soybean, topping to daifuku that breaks apart to reveal a smooth beany centre. It’s served with another matcha tea, this time light and frothy so there’s a latte quality to the drink minus the dairy.

Aside from his culinary training, Chef Takeshi Sato achieved other accomplishments including being a sake sommelier and qualified to prepare a Japanese tea ceremony – hence the final two cups of matcha served with dessert. He jokingly says he loves drinking, another common theme that seems to run through the upscale Japanese chefs of Toronto.

Chef Sato leads an all-female kitchen brigade who artfully creates and plates the dishes. Takeshi has decades of cooking experience from working in a Michelin restaurant in Tokyo, helming Toronto’s Zen restaurant, and most recently being the official chef of the Japanese Consulate General in Toronto. Now it’s his turn to be an owner of a restaurant in his name, when will his star come?


Overall mark - 8 out of 10


How To Find Them
 Location: Toronto, Canada
 Address: 575 Mount Pleasant Road


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Gastro World's Grading System

  • Anything under 5 - I really disliked and will never go back
  • 6 - decent restaurant but I likely won't return
  • 7 - decent restaurant and I will likely return
  • 8 - great restaurant that I'd be happy to recommend
  • 9 - fantastic restaurant that I would love to visit regularly and highly recommend
  • 10 - absolute perfection!


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Finn's Seafood, Chops & Cocktails (Victoria)


To go to B.C. and not have fresh seafood should be considered a sin. Without a doubt, I indulged in seafood daily during my trip, but it mostly consisted of fish and shrimp. It wasn’t until I went to Finn's Seafood, Chops & Cocktails that a crab made its way across the table.

I couldn’t go to the B.C. and not sample their local Dungeness crab ($78; seasonal price). Yet, when they are prepared fresh and whole, a feeling of dread flows over me as I can’t stomach the thought of an animal being cooked alive. Hence, when placing my order, I asked our server whether the chef could do anything to kill the crab prior to putting it into the steam oven. Imagine my delight when she noted that Finn’s always humanely kills their seafood prior to its preparation.

A note for diners: what this means is the gooey yellow stuff (I recently learnt is called hepatopancreas) and any roe (if the crab is female) will not be found under the shell. Personally, I’m fine with this as the hepatopancreas is slimy, doesn’t taste the greatest, and is really an organ that filters impurities for the crab and not the healthiest to eat in the first place – you can learn more about it from Crabbing Hub


The sizeable crab arrived in its full glory, covering a couple of boiled baby potatoes and rapini, served with melted butter for dipping into. A shell cracker in hand, I went to town on the thing and was greeted with sweet succulent meat bursting through the shells – not like the poor starving crabs we find in Ontario. What a treat to have it fresh and locally caught. 

Even though the crab (and my friend’s lobster) were fairly large, you’ll likely still want something to nibble on while the seafood is prepared as it can take a while. We shared the house smoked rockfish croquettes ($15) and they were a great starter to munch on while looking into the ocean – crispy nuggets of mashed potatoes mixed with smoked fish and a lovely citrusy tartar sauce for an extra punch of flavour.


Finn’s little touches were great as well – such as providing small ice buckets for individual pours of wine to ensure they are kept cool as well. 


Narrowing down where I wanted to have crab took a bit of research given B.C. is a known producer of the crustacean. Ultimately, I landed on Finn’s due to their amazing location and views of the Victoria Harbour and the restaurant’s comfortable environment - eating crab is a messy affair, something I wouldn’t want to do on a picnic table with seagulls above me and flimsy paper towels threatening to blow into the wind. But what really sealed the deal was that Finn’s is a partner of the Ocean Wise program, which means their seafood is caught with sustainability in mind. 

Thank you Finn’s for building in humane and sustainable practices into your operations. Guilt free dining is definitely the way to go. 

Overall mark - 8 out of 10


How To Find Them
 Location: Victoria, Canada
 Address: 1208 Wharf Street


Follow me on twitter to chat, be notified about new posts and more - https://twitter.com/GastroWorldBlog
____________________________
Gastro World's Grading System

  • Anything under 5 - I really disliked and will never go back
  • 6 - decent restaurant but I likely won't return
  • 7 - decent restaurant and I will likely return
  • 8 - great restaurant that I'd be happy to recommend
  • 9 - fantastic restaurant that I would love to visit regularly and highly recommend
  • 10 - absolute perfection!


Is That It? I Want More!

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CLOSED: Orote (Toronto)


There's something about a tasting menu that gives me a thrill - it's oddly freeing to detach myself from decisions and just be ready to experience. Almost like a rollercoaster for eating where I strap myself in for a ride and hope the track is enjoyable.

Orote presents a six-course menu ($78) where there are some decisions: a choice of main course  and whether you want any of the supplementary ingredients and courses. It's not overly exhaustive, I settled on the fish and as a table we decided to add on everything we could. Let the ride begin.

It starts off slowly, as we made our way up the dinner hill. The thinly sliced pork belly with boiled daikon and pickled parrilla leaves is a dish that's better as a whole than each of the individual parts. Yet, the kitchen needs to work on balance: there's too much parrilla so the acidity overwhelms the delicate pork belly and the chunk of irregularly cut daikon makes it really difficult to create a roll. If these ingredients were smaller, the diner would have a better opportunity to taste the paper-thin pork belly and its dusting of savoury shrimp powder. 


We begin to pick up steam when the skewer of lobster and pumpkin robata arrives. It was fantastic, each bite augmented with black garlic and bits of walnut. The spices and grilled preparation gives the lobster such a unique taste that I couldn't register the protein during the first bite, wow was it meaty. 


As we make our way to the top of the plunge, I'm momentarily skeptical of the "salad" course... there's an awfully large portion of what looks like unadorned leafy greens. We're told to make sure to dig to the bottom where we'll find poached mussels and a wonderful consommé. All in all, I didn't mind the  leafy greens and sticks of daikon, it made for a nice cleanser between the grilled lobster and the following dumplings. I just wish the greens were quickly blanched so it wouldn't cause the rest of the dish to cool down so much. Make sure you get every drop of the lovely soup. 


I was thrilled with the two plump mushroom and tofu dumplings. On its own it may seem a bit plain, but as I broke them apart and had bits of it with the bonito dashi, it was delicious. If there's one thing Orote does well it's their soups - they seriously should consider having a larger soup course. For this dish we added shaved truffle ($10) but it didn't make that much of a difference. Give me an extra bowl of dashi any day. 


For the main, I opted for halibut, a nice thick meaty piece that was cooked superbly. It just needed more seasoning - there was so much sesame sauce on top of the fish, yet it added more of a creamy texture than flavour. Even the broth served with the halibut wasn't as strong as the previous dishes. All in all, the main was fine, but not overly exciting. 


Had I known, I would have gone with the pork loin, which was way more flavourful and tasty. The pickled kale made me think of the dish as a lighter and less greasy form of braised pork belly with preserved vegetables, the Hakka mu choy cow yok (from the Cantonese dialect). The pork also went better with the bowl of miso yolk rice ($4), which I forgot to take a picture, but imagine a bowl of steamed sticky rice topped with shaved egg yolk and way too many green onions. 


The shared add-on dishes were sprinkled throughout the ride. Orote's chicken ssam ($12) consists of large mounds of cold shredded chicken topped with a slice of daikon. You can't really wrap it up like bo ssam, so it is slightly strange the dish is named chicken "wrap". I recommend including some of the pickled greens on the side: it would give the chicken more flavour and would provide diners with ingredients to make chicken ssam two ways.


If you're sensitive to salt, Orote is actually a great place to dine at as even the truffle rice cake and perilla seed ($25), described to us as a really creamy rich dish, wasn't overly heavy or powerful. Sure, the sauce was thicker compared to the broth that adorned other dishes, but it wasn't creamy in the traditional sinful sense. If anything, the best part of the dish wasn't it's "creaminess", truffle shavings, or the perilla seeds... it was the soft chewy pieces of rice cake.


Overall, the ride ended on a high: I thoroughly enjoyed the barley cream dessert, which is like a really fluffy panna cotta topped with finely grated chocolate shavings, puffed buckwheat, and black sesame. Creamy and light, it had a great texture that I wanted to savour, yet also wished I could just pop half of it into my mouth and allow the delicate sweetness to flood my taste buds.


The newly opened Orote offers a wonderful tasting option for those who are looking for a healthier meal that doesn't leave you feel stuffed and heavy. I can certainly see Actinolite's influences in Chef Kwangtaek Lee's menu. Though I urge Chef Lee to consider bringing in even more of his Korean influences into the dishes, especially in the mains and add-ons to really give it some pizzazz. As it stands, Orote is nice and solid, but there's the potential to make it really thrilling. 

Overall mark - 7 out of 10


How To Find Them
 Location: Toronto, Canada
 Address: 276 Havelock Street
 

Follow me on twitter to chat, be notified about new posts and more - https://twitter.com/GastroWorldBlog
____________________________
Gastro World's Grading System

  • Anything under 5 - I really disliked and will never go back
  • 6 - decent restaurant but I likely won't return
  • 7 - decent restaurant and I will likely return
  • 8 - great restaurant that I'd be happy to recommend
  • 9 - fantastic restaurant that I would love to visit regularly and highly recommend
  • 10 - absolute perfection!


Is That It? I Want More!

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Enigma (Toronto)

Enigma’s 8-course tasting menu is priced smartly: at $230, it’s not an eat-here-every-week affair, yet it isn’t so costly as to become seemingly prohibitive unless phrases like my yacht also escapes your lips (Sushi Masaki Saito, this is directed to you). It’s a place to visit if you are celebrating an occasion or to really unwind, which is where I found myself a couple of days before Christmas. Another year of work was in the rearview mirror and the holidays were about to begin – why not get it started with a bang?

I wanted to give my brain a rest… no more decisions, just feed my body with provisions and provide a few hours of blissful conversation to melt away the stress. It seemed to start in that vein as a warm shot of Enigma’s immune booster was presented at the table. Yet, before we could cheers to good health, a host of decisions had to be made: did we want a juice ($75), cocktail ($130) or wine pairing to go with the meal? Did the occasion need some extra indulgence because we could get a spoon of sturgeon caviar ($80) added into the lobster chawanmushi or have an extra alba truffle dish? Please… just let the table have the lovely warm ginger citrus shot before inundating us with pesky decisions.

Luckily, once the pairing and supplementary questions were out of the way, we didn’t need to decide on anything else, other than what steak knife to use – more on that later. Instead, we were treated to two delicious snacks: a wonderful corn tartlet made from an impossibly thin crispy shell holding a buttery sweet corn espuma studded with popped kernels and other crunchy nutty bits that made me moan; and a chicken skin sandwich piped with a lovely miso-butter mousse. Yum!

What looks like a salad comes next, baked leaves of black cabbage, kale and spinach piled around squash and a smoked foie gras centre. Each bite is rich and oily… much too oily for my taste.

The lovely beetroot tuna cannoli were more up my alley, the sheets of ruby beetroot sandwiching chunks of tuna in a horseradish cream. Or the following kombu poached potato where chunks of soft humble potato were augmented with creamy uni and lovely crispy potato frizzles that made me want to lick the dish.

Of course, the chunks of delicately barely poached through lobster are delicious, but that silky egg of the chawanmushi was the star, each bite filled with so much flavour that made me wonder if this was going to be the peak of the meal.

This was paired with a crispy lobster kromeski, a crispy croquette that was tasty, but nothing compared to the egg, and a seaweed salad that could really benefit from being cut into more manageable bites.

In a gimmicky manner, a box of knives is brought to the table, and we’re asked to select one for the meat courses to come. It’s a strange interlude, perhaps meant to create excitement or a sense of participation. While it wasn’t a distraction I minded, it also didn’t really add much to the meal either and is likely annoying for the two staff members who needs to occupy themselves with the task.

Quite frankly, the following BBQ Iberico pork was so melt-in-your-mouth that I could have cut the coin of loin with a butter knife. It was a sing from the heavens type of dish that makes me appreciate the prized Iberico pig. The white peach salad, XO sauce, and dollops of apple gelee all did an excellent job at complimenting the pork.

Executive Chef Quinton Bennett comes out for the last savoury dish and explains that he uses PEI beef as he loves that the cows are finished with potatoes to give the meat an extra richness. The steak didn’t disappoint, and the accompanying king oyster mushrooms were fantastic dusted with bone marrow and the pickled onion petals such a lovely contrast against the meaty plate. Now that’s a way to finish.

Dessert begins with a plate of fallen leaves made from various juices. It’s a beautiful start, our spoons brimming with crispy textures and sweet flavours that made me wistful that the meal was nearing the end.

A trio of petit four are presented with a lovely wafer cake, citrus gelee, and a really large indulgent chocolate truffle.

All this is to warm us up for the fruit tree, which Chef Quinton cheekily tells us to get our cameras ready to “Instagram the hell out of the dish”. It’s certainly the most photographed dish of the menu, the gleaming red apples just calling out to the picked and eaten. 

Like the first bite of the meal, you’re greeted with a fluffy heavenly cream that’s wrapped around a slightly savoury dill laced salad centre that really works. A fantastic last bite that takes Enigma FOUR days to prepare. Boy did I feel guilty for not taking a few more photos.

To end, tables are given a goody bag for breakfast. My only complaint, and the reason why Enigma did not score a 9 out of 10, is that these takeaway bags are made per couple. If you’re dining with friends (like in our case) and do not live with your dining companion, it makes for an awkward end to the meal.

Enigma, if you’re going to give something away, just make it so that each person gets something to go. Or keep it simple and have everyone leave with just the menu. Either way, the meal was great, why have someone leave on a strange note?

Overall mark - 8 out of 10


How To Find Them
 Location: Toronto, Canada
 Address: 23 St. Thomas Street


Follow me on twitter to chat, be notified about new posts and more - https://twitter.com/GastroWorldBlog
____________________________
Gastro World's Grading System

  • Anything under 5 - I really disliked and will never go back
  • 6 - decent restaurant but I likely won't return
  • 7 - decent restaurant and I will likely return
  • 8 - great restaurant that I'd be happy to recommend
  • 9 - fantastic restaurant that I would love to visit regularly and highly recommend
  • 10 - absolute perfection!


Is That It? I Want More!

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