North 44

Ian has finally graduated, so his parents were in town for convocation and a celebration dinner. Ian of course was riddled with indecision regarding restaurant selection but in the end he chose North 44, the location of a previous celebration dinner. It seems to be unanimously liked according to Toronto's food snobs & picky people.

Sorry about the pics about to follow - lighting was not great, but you can get the overall idea!

Appetizers included:

For Janice - cured tasmanian sea trout with potato pancakes. I had my eye on the heirloom carrot salad, but was swayed at the last moment. It was all pretty tasty, although the potato pancakes could have used some more excitement.
For parents #1 & 2 - they shared a pear watercress salad. They seemed to enjoy. The waiter was pretty on top of things - they just mentioned quickly that they would share and the salad came out split in half in 2 separate bowls!

Ian had seared tuna sashimi and he raved for quite a while on it. I was impressed by the rather large serving for $21 and the cuteness of the quail egg.
The bread basket was good with a nice variety of fruit, olive and french.

Main courses were the highlight. As per last time, everything was perfectly cooked (perhaps as you would expect for about $40 each).

I went with Indian spiced beef short rib with potato puree & wilted greens. There was even some okra floating around in the tasty indian spiced gravy! The short ribs were plentiful & no knife was required to eat this dish.


Ian went with the black cod. The fish was a hearty portion, perfectly cooked with onion dumplings & a generous amount of pre-shelled edamame. All was delicious and Ian is now convinced that all edamame should come pre-shelled. In particular, this fish was well cooked and the layers flaked right off in perfect form.

The parents has tuna with mushroom dumplings & european sea bass with crab & mussels.

Desserts were all $14 and well worth it!

The parents shared and I had my own creme caramel. It came with a surprising amount of extras including chocolate sorbet with some sponge toffee pieces and a bit of mystery sweet fruit. The caramel itself was a bit unusual with some salt on top. It was a bit more interesting than the typical creme caramel.



The happy customer below finishes off 1/3 of his chocolate sampler dessert with a shot of cumin spiced hot chocolate. This was a bit odd, but definitely tasty! Chocolate/banana mousse & a cheesecake were also included in the sampler.


Overall, we agree with the T. food snobs & this is a winner for a celebration dinner.