jjmellon's Profile
Where to eat near Courtice
I underestimated the available delivery services in Courtice. You can get more than just pizza. You can also get Swiss Chalet, Dial-A-Bottle, and flowers delivered.
In addition, you can get free delivery of hormone- and antibiotic-free beef from the Swain family farm in Blackstock (http://www.swainbeef.ca), and you can get a weekly delivery of organic produce from Durham Organics (http://www.durhamorganics.ca).
Where to eat near Courtice
I think you'll find that Durham is probably better at food than Kitchener/Waterloo. We have no RIM, though, so we fall short in expense account dining. Other than that, I much prefer our Buster Rhino's to your Hog Tails (just as an example).
No use comparing apples and oranges, but for apples you're in luck. Within 15 minutes of Courtice you've got Archibald's with 16 varieties plus ciders and wines, plus Algoma Orchards, plus Bowmanville's annual Apple Festival.
Where to eat near Courtice
Your fears are unfounded, with one small proviso. You are moving beyond the city and even beyond the suburbs, and you will need to drive a car everywhere for everything. You need to realize that "local" means a half hour drive (each way), and unless you are within a couple of miles of downtown Courtice and want pizza, "delivery" will be a memory from your previous urban life.
The best restaurant in Courtice is Bistro 238. They have no website, but there are photos of the menu on their Facebook page. I eat there regularly, and the food is good.
The best restaurant in your new area is Bistro Chanterelle in Bowmanville. It has a larger menu, nicer space and a better chef than Bistro 238, and the prices are similar. You need reservations on Friday and Saturday.
You also have Zante, a Greek restaurant in Bowmanville that is the best in the area. It is the type of place where, the last time we were there a month ago, a 10-person wedding dinner was going on in which one of the guests was playing excellent solo violin -- spontaneous entertainment.
There is also a tiny cafe called Touch of Dutch in downtown Bowmanville where you can get breakfast and lunch at low prices. They have Nasi Goreng on the menu, and a freezer with several homemade Indonesian dishes to take away.
There are also a couple of standard diners in Courtice that get decent reviews for breakfast and lunch, but I haven't tried them.
After that, cross the border into Oshawa and continue west, and within a half hour drive all the riches of "Restaurants in Durham that don't suck" (a Chowhound thread) are open for discovery.
Scarborough To-Do List - What have I missed? What SHOULD I miss?
I think Bella's Lechon is take out only.
non-Winterlicious prix fixe menus in Toronto, Winter 2012
Mandalay has an unusual prix fixe that includes a choice of four appetizers, dessert and coffee for $10 plus the price of any entree on their regular menu. There are 6 mains at $14.95, and several more under $20. This restaurant at Lawrence and Markham Rd. has been one of the good ones in Scarborough for many years.
There's also a $15 coupon on their website for the regular menu until February 13.
http://www.mandalayrestaurant.ca/
Solo Sushi Ya -- Suffering a Kates Effect?
My point is that the quality, quantity and presentation of the omakase at this restaurant has been diminished because of the rush of diners. My use of the phrase "assembly line" was intended to capture this idea. I'm not complaining that the 30 diners were served an identical meal, but that in my opinion the meal was noticeably inferior to what has been served over the past two years.
Solo Sushi Ya -- Suffering a Kates Effect?
Solo Sushi Ya is in Newmarket, an hour drive from where I live. After reading a good review on this board a couple of years ago, I have made the trip a few times, always ordering the $55 omakase. Everyone I've taken there has felt it was a great meal, and an exceptional value. But after dinner there last night, I'm not sure any more.
I had no idea before I arrived that the restaurant was the subject of a very positive Joanne Kates review in the Globe and Mail in December. But the restaurant is very small, and when you hear people at other tables say, when handed the menu, "She says to order the omakase", you start to wonder if you've stumbled into a cult meeting. Eventually, the restaurant filled up (30 seats), and every single diner ordered the omakase. At one table, a person wanted "no raw fish" in their omakase -- not a problem, says formerly opinionated Chef Gao.
On previous visits I always felt that the omakase was something special, a chance for the chef to show off a bit. Last night, I could see for myself that the omakase was an assembly line process. The sashimi course was on the small side, and the sushi course had only four pieces. All together they contained only tuna, salmon, a single shrimp, a single piece of snapper and a single piece of smoked eel. The cooked course was a piece of grilled mackerel with grilled burdock root and shaved onion. The rest of the meal consisted of three small appetizers, a good chawanmushi, and another custard with blueberry sauce for dessert.
The fish was good quality, but the whole experience was more like winterlicious than a special night out. I certainly got no "wow" for my money ($180 for 2 all in).
Arthur's on the 4th - Oshawa, Finally Something Delicious in the GTA East!
It died several months ago from lack of customers.
Splendido's truffle tasting menu review
Two of us had the full truffle tasting menu with wine pairings at Splendido this week. This was the first time I have eaten black truffles, and I'm glad I experienced that taste. One of the last dishes on the menu paired shaved truffles with tiny braised brussel sprouts, and I was surprised how similar they are -- both provide earthy bass notes.
I have complained about poor service at "new" Splendido in the past, but this time the service was great. For both food and entertainment quality, I would rate this tasting menu at least the equal of David Lee's in his last year at Splendido. Our meal consisted of 10 courses and 8 wine pairings, lasted over 2.5 hours, and never felt rushed or delayed. At a cost of $150 each before tax and tip, a saving of $65 each using Dining Datenight, it is a much better Christmas present than socks or underwear (or almost anything else).
Dinner Recos near St Jacobs Farmers Market for Tomorrow?
Google Maps says it's 3 Km from the farmers market to downtown St. Jacobs.Your best bet is Benjamin's. We eat there a couple of times a year, mostly for lunch which is a good deal. Dinner prices are a bit high ($25 to $35 entrees), but the food has always been good.
North East of Toronto - Wedding Venue Feb 2012 - I Need Help!!!
How about Parkwood Estate in Oshawa? Unique and wedding-friendly.
Toronto's most boring resto: your nominations, please
Thanks for listing Nota Bene -- the word "boring" hits the nail on the head. Good food, reasonable prices, but a menu almost unchanged for two years, prepared and served in "corporate drone" style. Maybe that's just the formula for success in their location -- corporate lunches, tourists and suburban theater-goers? So is David Lee now retired, living off his residuals?
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Nota Bene
180 Queen Street West, Toronto, ON M5V 2A1, CA
Arthur's on the 4th - Oshawa, Finally Something Delicious in the GTA East!
Three of us went recently on a Friday night, and I think the two previous reviews of Arthur's are way over the top. Adjectives like "amazing", "divine", "fantastic", "in a league of its own" --- come on!
First of all, they've apparently already raised their prices -- the website www.arthursonthe4th.com says $35 for 3 courses , and that's what we were charged.
The food is OK, if slightly over-priced. It is a perfectly fine bistro-style restaurant with a limited menu, in the same league as Burbs Bistro in Pickering, Nice Bistro in Whitby, and Chanterelle Bistro in Bowmanville, among others in the area. That's a lower league compared to e.g. Simple Bistro in Toronto, though. It differs very little from the restaurant it replaced in the same space, which died from lack of customers. I fear Arthur's will suffer the same fate --- the location inside a little-known museum is completely invisible from the street, and I haven't seen them advertising or promoting themselves. When I was there, it was half-full (or half-empty, if you wish).
In summary, the restaurant is worth trying if you live or work nearby. It is not worth superlatives.
Good Prix Fixe Meals- List
No responses for 10 days? Let's see if we can get the ball rolling -- I assume you are looking for places that are not often mentioned here.
Mandalay is hidden in a small pedestrian plaza at Lawrence & Markham Rd.. Many of its customers have been coming back for decades -- it is invisible from the street, and I don't think it ever advertises. It has prospered on local word of mouth only, I think -- whenever I am there on a Friday or Saturday night, it is full. The menu has both French-style and Asian-style dishes, http://mandalayrestaurant.ca/
The prix fixe menu includes 3 courses for $25. First course is a choice of several salads or a soup. Main course is Grilled Fresh Filet of Atlantic Salmon brushed with garlic butter, served with potatoes and vegetables -or- Mixed Grill: Chicken breast, salmon and shrimp served with potatoes and vegetables -or- Veal Parmigiana served with pasta. The desert course is typically pastries, creme brulee, etc.
For the sake of variety, I normally order from the regular menu and pay a bit more. But the prix fixe is the best deal in the restaurant.
Winterlicious LOVE only - Where are the MUST eats?
Had the Winterlicious lunch yesterday at Auberge du Pommier. Food was great, service was professional, and wine pairings at $20 for all 3 courses (including ice wine or port with dessert) were a steal. It would be very difficult to beat this value for money proposition if you want "fine dining".
Chowhound's Own Top 10 Restaurants of GTA
The best I've been to in the past 18 months:
Solo Sushi Ya (Newmarket)
Kobo Goumet (Pickering)
Anjappar Chettinad (Scarborough)
Colborne Lane
Origin
Auberge du Pommier
Simple Bistro
Buster Rhino's
I'll use/waste my remaining two selections as "negative votes" -- places I've eaten at that I don't think should be in the top ten: Splendido and Nota Bene. This is just chit-chat, I'm not proposing that negative votes should be counted.
Whitby/Durham restaurants that don't suck
I've found a good Thai restaurant in downtown Whitby called I-Thai. Their web site is
www.ithairestaurant.com
It's been open for 18 months, the owner/chef is from Thailand, and the dishes we've tried so far seem to be unique and authentic. Standouts include the steamed Basa fish with ginger (we've had it twice); the mango salad that used sliced, not shredded, mangoes that were perfectly ripe; and the purple sticky rice.
I-Thai now replaces Odine as my favorite Thai restaurant in Durham. Odine's food is good, but it is more westernized than I-Thai.
Whitby/Durham restaurants that don't suck
It's located just west of Port Perry. It closes every winter (December thru February/March). In summer it has a vintage car night once a week. You would go there because it is "an institution" or "a legend" on the way to the cottage, not because you want good food. If you like this type of food, Swiss Chalet is closer and arguably better.
Whitby/Durham restaurants that don't suck
Tried Kobo last Saturday night because of the discussion here. The chef is Japanese, and the waitresses appear to be recently arrived from Japan. We ordered the house-smoked salmon salad, the sushi omakase, grilled sea bass and a mixed seafood grill. All of them were very good, and the prices are relatively low. Of high end Japanese restaurants I only know Solo Sushi Ya in Newmarket -- this is in the same league, but a notch lower in the standings. I'd say it's a very good choice for Japanese food in Durham region.
VIKING DELI FIRE
It appears from their websites that the Viking Foods on Railside Rd. http://www.vikingfoods.ca/AboutUs.html is a different business from Milbree Viking http://www.milbreeviking.com/store/ , whose homepage now says "We have moved! Our new address is Unit 2, 350 Davis Dr., Newmarket, Ontario, L3Y 2N7. We are still setting up but our doors will open to the public very soon!"
True or false?
Splendido- No!
Charles Yu, I take from your posting that you have not personally eaten at the new Splendido. I have great respect for your opinions about food but I think it is wrong to rely entirely on reputation and hearsay to contradict another poster's first hand review.
I would have thought that your recent hearsay review of "Shanghai Dim Sum" as " the BEST Shanghainese food and Northern Dim Sum outside of HK, Taiwan and China!! " shows the pitfalls of that approach. It appears that someone else's opinion, no matter how trusted and credentialed, does not match your own opinion when you finally went there, nor does it match anyone else who has reviewed the place.
I have eaten at old Splendido and new Splendido, and I generally agree with the OP. I do not claim that there are no individual dishes that are delicious and worth the price. I do not claim that there are no good servers, or that the chef is bad. The old Splendido had impeccable service, but my server was bad ten months ago, and the OP's server was bad this month. The food my party ordered was nowhere near the level of the old Splendido, and the OP says the same.
In spite of having the same front of house and chef, and in spite of reportedly having good lobster at a reasonable price, I think the new Splendido has taken a big step down from the old. At best, it has become inconsistent.
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Splendido
88 Harbord Street, Toronto, ON M5S 1G5, CA
Splendido- No!
In fact, I wrote a similarly titled review "Splendido -- No longer the top" in October, 2009:
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/662344
I'm sorry to read the same types of complaints I had ten months ago (strange, amateurish service; ordinary food; reduced ambience after the renovations). I also cited the inaccuracy of the menu descriptions. How can they still be getting these things wrong?
My review received only one response, which agreed with me. I think the new Splendido is drowning in a sea of indifference, and without significant improvements it is entirely deserved.
Real Cider in Toronto?
Archibald's Estate Winery east of Oshawa is an apple orchard that produces hard cider and apple wines. Their website is www.archibaldswinery.com. Their listings for cider are:
Hard Cider (3) $10.95 750ml
Hard Cider Blends(Apple Raspberry; Apple Cranberry & Apple Black Currant (3-4) $11.95
They also produce a number of apple wines, which are generally less sweet and have a higher alcohol content.
Personally, I like some of the Quebec ciders a bit better than these, and in general I think the price is too high for all cider in 750ml bottles.
Odine, Japanese-Thai Fusion Restaurant in Ajax, Ontario
After seeing the original review a month ago, I finally got to Odine with my family this week. We had four Thai dishes -- pad thai, mango chicken, spicy fried eggplant, and golden beef curry with coconut sticky rice. All four dishes were good, but the beef curry was the best. The place holds about 60 seats, and it was almost full. The dishes are only about $10 each, so the total bill for three was very low.
We ate at Xaphire in Forest Hill a couple of weeks ago, and I would rate Odine's food in the same league, but maybe a small notch lower. This is the best Thai food we have found in Durham region, and I'd like to thank the OP for pointing it out.
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Xaphire
530 Eglinton Ave W, Toronto, ON M5N1B4, CA
Grass-fed Hamburgers in Toronto
In general, buffalo/bison are only fed grass or hay. So you can potentially expand your search to include places that serve buffalo burgers, though I don't happen to know any.
xaphire on eglinton
Three of us went last night, and we loved this place. The food is among the best Thai we've had in Toronto, the portions are large, and the prices are low. We tried the spring rolls and the mango salad, then traditional pad thai, red beef curry, and stir-fried eggplant. Food good, service good, with beer and tax total bill $63.
Thanks for the recommendation.
A Taste of Iceland at The Drake
We ate there tonight, and all three of us thought it was great. The value for money was excellent, especially if you factor in the saved plane fare to Iceland. The comment about all three of the non-dessert courses being served luke warm was accurate, and I usually hate that, but somehow this time the taste and presentation won me over. The reindeer steak, in particular, was tender and delicious.
This was our first time at the Drake, and there were some interesting occurences. First of all, when I made the reservation on Wednesday, the only time slot available for the whole of Saturday evening was 6 o'clock. In fact, however, the dining room was no more than 10% filled by 7 o'clock, and was less than half full when we left at 8. Do they have a problem with their reservation system, or could this possibly have been deliberate (couldn't handle a full room with this menu)?
Second, there seemed to be an almost infinite number of wait staff. We were seated near the door to the kitchen, and It honestly seemed that every course to every table was delivered from the kitchen by a different person, and this went on for almost the full two hours we were there. It was amazing to see.
Thanks to Non Doctor for the recommendation -- we would never have gone without it.
recs for quick & tasty lunches within a 5 minute drive of the University of Waterloo
Hog Tails BBQ is in a strip mall about two miles west of the university. My original "find" is here:
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/676916
Buster Rhinos new Store
We got takeout ribs, pulled pork and brisket there last Friday night. Everything was in vacuum packed bags for reheating.
We have had Buster's ribs fresh out of the smoker on Friday afternoons about five times in the past year, and they were beginning to taste too salty and a bit too dry. Suprisingly, these vacuum-packed ribs actually tasted better than the fresh ones, and were much less salty than previously.
Colborne Lane vs Splendido
The tasting menu at Colborne Lane was superior to the meal my wife and I had at the new Splendido, and is guaranteed to be memorable. Colborne Lane will customize the tasting menu to eliminate any fish course, if you ask.
But your "SO doesn't eat fish" restriction worries me -- maybe you should just stick to the safety of individual menu choices at Splendido. Colborne Lane is "food as theatre", and theatre performers and patrons need the freedom to take some small risks.
