DINNER January 30, 2009

San Lorenzo has been open for a while, but I couldn’t get the JJ to eat there with me. I understood why. It looked like all style and no substance. All valet parking, guys with gold medallions and girls with big hair. But reading Robert Beauchemin and Lesley Chesterman’s glowing reviews made us both a little more comfortable.  Beauchemin, especially, is money. If he says a restaurant is good, you can usually take it to the bank.

It’s a bit of an odd space. One of these newish looking spaces with all the charm of a shopping mall. It sports floating ceilings and lots of concrete that someone has tried to put lipstick on with big, old wooden tables, chandeliers, mirrors and tapestry. The overall effect isn’t bad, but the tiny skirt the waitress is wearing and Raging Bull playing on the projection screen  make you think you are much lower on St-Laurent than you really are. Having Christmas decorations still in the wall when it’s almost February is also a bit off putting. The menu is a cheap stapled jobs that you might get in a BYOW on Duluth and the minute it hits my hand I feel an impending sense of doom. Continue Reading…

DINNER January 22, 2009

Regular readers will already know the affection I bear for Mas Cuisine. I had the opportunity to dine at the restaurant again recently and wanted to post a brief description of the meal and some pictures. Once again, I was very impressed by the creativity and strength of execution of the kitchen.

Marinated salmon with curried cauliflower florets, raw grapes and pine nuts was an interesting on a number of levels. The silkiness of the fish layered on the rich pine nuts contrasted with the crunchy cauliflower and the sweet, acidic pop of the grapes, the whole bathed in undertones of turmeric, coriander and cumin. Continue Reading…

DINNER January 19, 2010

This year has been busy so far. So busy, that my new New Year’s resolution has become to write abbreviated reviews in the hopes of actually getting some content online. While I have been too busy to write, thankfully I haven’t been too busy to eat. I was invited to Atti by friends on a weeknight in January, which given my current state of affairs means that I arrived late, did my best to eat in less than an hour, then ran back to the office. Continue Reading…