Thursday, 15 February 2007

• Sequel

  3362 Yonge Street
  Toronto, ON
  M4N 2M7
  (416) 480-0996
  http://www.sequel.ca

  Happy Valentine's Day!

  It's that special time of the year where we do something special with the special one(s) in our life.  And seeing that we all love food and eating is a necessity, one of the traditions is to have a nice meal.

  For my Valentine's I wanted to find a cozy small restaurant with a more traditional homely feel to it.  I wanted something different to highlight a special day but didn't want to experiment too much.  What I went with is Sequel, a "boutique style restaurant that offers cool urban cuisine".  In plain English I would say it's the safe Canadian flare.

  Once again I forgot to take a picture so please bear with this photo from their web site.  I can vouch that the restaurant really looks like the stock photo:

  

  Source: http://www.sequel.ca

  A very cozy interior:

  

  They have an upper floor to accommodate larger groups.

  Really fresh and soft raisin bread and crispy thin bread to hold us over:

  

  I really liked the raisin bread.  So thick and so soft at the same time.  I love thick bread which is why I prefer Texas-cut bread over the regular stuff.

  New York Strip (medium rare):

  

  Very well presented with a red and green colour theme.  The steak was tender and fairly lean.  Similar to most New Yorks, the surface of the steak is a bit salty and for this steak it detracted my taste buds from the taste of the steak.

  porcini dusted veal tenderloin (medium rare), marrow bone, king eringhi, honey mushroom and pinenut ragout. baba’s potato pancakes.white peach gastrique:

  

  I was very surprised when I wasn't offered the usual steak knife with our orders.  But after one slice of the veal and I knew why.  The butter knife cut through the veal as though it was butter.  It was very tender and none of the garnishes distracted from the taste of the meat.  Serving the mashed potato in a hollowed out bone was a nice touch.  The bone did not add any flavour to the potato however.  Although you can only see one slice of veal in the picture, there is one more slice of equal slice just behind the potato.

  crème brule trio: stilton and pear, walnut, cinnamon :

  

  The seared top of very thick and extremely sweet.  The creme part is fairly sweet compared to ones I find in other restaurants and less like a Chinese egg tart.  If you have a sweet tooth I recommend this to complete your meal.

  I think we ordered some good dishes as a couple who was ordering while our main dishes were served ordered exactly the same dishes as ours.

  The dishes had a good portion size and every bite was absolutely delicious.  Food quality is high.  Service was a bit better than average.  However, our server did not offer to suggest a wine with our dishes and I felt we were neglected when our glasses of water were left empty for much of the night.

  The one disappointing aspect of the restaurant is the washroom with its elementary school quality roll of paper and the lack of proper odor management or air circulation (I wanted to be out of there as soon as possible while breathing as little as I could):

  

  Our meal with 2 glasses of wine came out to around $110 without tax.  I prefer this restaurant over Canoe and Auberge du Pommier and would not hesitate to recommend this to any one.  Although the washroom is not up to standard with other fancy restaurants, it is still a lot better than ones you find in the typical Chinese restaurant.

  Eric Tummy Points: 4.5 out of 5

  

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