Winterlicious Act I - C5

After years of wanting to take more advantage of one of the liciouses (winter or summer), we called early this year and booked one dinner and one lunch. Tonight was the dinner at C5 - the restaurant in the ROM. I guess normally the restaurant breaks things down in courses C1-C5. Winterlicious is only C1-C3 but regardless this numbered courses seems like an idea that needs broader adoption.

I opened with the calamari salad while Janice had the Butternut Squash Bisque. The calamari salad was interesting with a portion of the actual calamari salad, a portion of an avocado "salad" that seemed a lot like guacamole and another mystery item. Overall it was a good combination to open up the evening. Janice seemed to like the bisque as evidenced by the fact that she only let me have a tiny taste.

Then it was on to the C2 for which we both had "72 Hour Sous-Vide Beef Short Rib, Chestnut Potato Mash". The rib was super tender and generally quite delightful. The side of mash was surprisingly agreeable.

Finally for C3 Janice had "Chocolate Bread Pudding, Parsnip Gelato, Carrot Foam". According to Janice, Joanne Kates has been reporting lately about the popularity of "foam" so Janice was quite pleased to join the trendy set by chowing down on the carrot air mixture. The bread pudding I tried was enjoyable. I went with the "Pecorino Cheesecake, Ginger snap tuile, balsamic gelee" which was OK but I think I should have gone the bread pudding route. I can't resist cheesecake though so I liked that. It turns out balsamic gelee isn't my favorite though. However, if Janice were blogging she'd comment how it came in a "cute" little bowl.

The meal was washed down with some of their finest (in my mind - i.e. cheapest) merlot. Pelee Island in this case. We've had it before and I think we'd have it again.

Overall it was a decent winterlicious outing. The place was surprisingly empty though with maybe only 60% of the tables occupied. The restaurant itself was quite nice with a large lounge area and some non-objectionable music playing. Aside from the food, we really liked the cutlery and salt/pepper shaker. The knives were interesting as the handle was rotated 90 degrees relative to the blade. Hopefully the guy from the ikea commercial eats there sometime so we could pick up something similar. I disliked having a coat check particularly because it means I have to part with my coat that contains my precious quizno's coupons. Luckily no sticky fingers walked away with them. The other negative was serving sizes. Maybe they're small for winterlicious but in general the servings were tiny. It seemed to work out in the end as I didn't leave that hungry so I shouldn't complain excessively.