Monday, May 24, 2010

Trevor Kitchen & Bar

I invited an old friend to dinner and she really wanted to go to Trevor Kitchen & Bar. I hesitated because to me that little strip along Wellington is one of those chichi, pay through the nose, seen and want to be seen, one vodka martini over the line streets. I acquiesced to her request and managed to wrangle a reservation for 7:30 PM. I also decided to bring along my own bottle of wine as this was a special occasion and there wasn't an Amarone on the wine list.
Corkage at Trevor is a steep $35 @ bottle and for that I got a not so friendly waitress opening the bottle, while chiding me that they had a good wine list, after all, they were awarded the Wine Spectator Award. I wanted to remind her that to get a Wine Spectator Award all a restaurant has to do is send in their $250 bucks along with their wine list to the magazine and basically they yeah or nay the list. How is this an award for a superior wine list? Don't get me wrong, the wine list at Trevor is good but I wanted to enjoy a decent Amarone this evening. On Tues. & Wed. they wave the corkage but this didn't apply during Summerlicious. By the way, I really hate stemless wine glasses. Great for brandy & cognac, not so great for red wine and even worse on a warm evening in a restaurant with very little air movement.

When ordering at Summerlicious you have to order your whole menu all at once. The rule that we apply for ourselves is that we both pick different things, it's our hard and fast rule when we dine out at Summerlicious.

So here's what we picked: (First Course) Pan Seared Scallop with Corn beef Hash & Black Truffle Mustard; Ricotta Gnocchi with Wild Leek Butter & Chevre Noir; (Second) Northern White Fish with Wild Honey Mushroom & Bacon Vinaigrette; Steak Frites with Dry Aged Alberta Sirloin with brisket & onion gratin; (Dessert) Strawberry Tiramisu and Dark Chocolate & Caramel Torte with Peanut Butter Chantilly. Sounded like pretty darned awesome choices to us. What you think you see is not always what you end up with. The scallop was tasteless with a Dijon mustard sauce splashed on the plate and a small blob of well riced potato broiled beside it. I have no idea of where that corned beef hash went. I love gnocchi. It was dry, dry, dry. If there was butter on them it got completely soaked up by the bread crumb/parmesan topping they put on them. No way was there any chevre noir used in this dish. For sure this dish was left sitting under a heat lamp for the better part of ten minutes. The results of that is dry little rubber bullets in a bowl. White fish which hails from Northern Ontario is fabulous fish. This white fish was simply two small filets pan fried, with no treatment other than perhaps being floured first and plunked on top of a bit of green salad with some small cherry tomatoes halved around it. They cut the beef to look like it was a chunk of tenderloin and you just can't do that with sirloin. It was sinewy and tough. The topping was the same grainy Dijon sauce that showed up with the scallop. On top of that they had some grated cheese mixed with bread crumbs broiled on top. The frites weren't frites. I consider frites to be thin and crispy. These were basically fries. I have posted some food pics from our dinner, you can see for yourself.

So here's where my whining ends. The dessert at least left us with a positive finish. The strawberry tiramisu was absolutely lovely. Light. Gentle. Sweet but not cloyingly so. The dark chocolate & caramel torte was warm and decadent. I love the peanut butter taste against the chocolate. The chantilly was almost like ice cream against the rich chocolate.
The ambiance at Trevor is probably what makes it such a popular place. It's dark wood, white linen, beamed ceilings with squeezed in sofas in and about the room. If you are a woman who is prone to mid life hot flashes, be prepared, this room is warm in more ways than one. It got downright hot in there. The woman at the next table fanned herself the whole time she sat there. You could see perspiration on the upper lips of most of the guests, but hey, its a hip place so what's a little sweat, right?

I would be willing to go back to Trevor to try their regular menu. I understand that they do a whiskey menu and also specialize in terrines & pates. I said it earlier in a conversation post and I'll say it again. I hate Summerlicious.

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