Far Niente

The interior of Far Niente. 

There are two floors (and sitting on the top floor is a treat since it's a prime people-watching spot and a good spot to check out what other diners are eating). The service here was really good - the waitress was honest with her recommendations which proved to be helpful in deciding what to eat.

Grilled Shrimp
Buttered Corn, Basil Sprout and Scallion Salad, Red Pepper Sauce

I thought this tasted like Mexican flavour inspired shrimp. My shrimp was cold and not very appetizing, but when put together with the red pepper sauce and grilled corn -it was better.

My coworkers had the Artichoke soup and they couldn't stop raving about it - I think that would have been a better choice than the shrimp. 

Grilled Flatiron Steak
With Frites, Lemon Pepper Aioli and California Slaw

I found the steak good despite the fact that the waitress didn't ask how I wanted it cooked. It was medium rare and juicy. I loved the Lemon Pepper Aioli - it added just the right touch to the each bite of steak. I also upgraded my frites to the poutine (extra $4) and it was SO WORTH IT! The poutine is amazing if you love poutine - there were 3 types of cheeses (shredded and curds) and the fries had enough gravy (the bottom ones were soaked - but that's exactly how I love my poutine). The one downside of the meal was the vinegary coleslaw. I didn't like it at all. 

The Gnocchi was also delicious; there were two types: soft and crispy and both were amazing!

Dark Chocolate Sin Cake
With White Chocolate Almond Meringue Crumble and Raspberry Glaze 
(vegetarian)

It felt like the sin cake wasn't particulary sinful. It was a nice cake and it wasn't too rich, but it just didn't have the same decadence that I would have expected from a title like "sin cake". I found the toasted meringue good, but the meringue was way to granular for my liking and it was difficult to eat with a dessert fork. I also found that there wasn't enough raspberry sauce so I wasn't too happy with the dessert. 

Overall, Far Niente had certain aspects that were good for a $20 Winterlicious lunch, but I didn't get the "wow that was an amazing meal" factor after the lunch. I can't say I was that impressed, but it was a decent $20 lunch. I think some of my co-workers chose some better items and enjoyed their lunch more than I enjoyed mine. 

Website: http://www.farnienterestaurant.com/

Bymark

Bymark is an culinary jewel in the heart of the financial district of Toronto. Famous for their $35 burgers and exquisite food prepared by celebrated chef Mark McEwan, it's considered a sign of wealth & prestige to dine here. And luckily for the business crowd who can expense client lunches to their companies, they can afford to really wine and dine their clients at this classy venue. For the rest of us, there's Winterlicious (thank goodness!) otherwise I don't think I could stomach spending more than $25 for lunch and even more for dinner. The Winterlicious menu for lunch is $25 (excl. tax and tip) and dinner is $45. We chose to do lunch since they were offering up their normally priced $35 hamburger for $25 with two additional courses. What a deal!

Roasted root vegetable salad with grapefruit segments & white balsamic dressing was good, but not worth $19 on the regular lunch menu. It was great as part of the Winterlicious line-up though! Great appetizer to really whet the appetite.

Crisp crab cakes with celery root & apple remoulade

As you can clearly tell, it was very artistically presented. The crab cakes were perfect! Crispy and golden brown on the outside and meaty inside. Good portion size, but not enough of the sauce/mayonnaise for me to dip my crab cakes in. The celery root salad was really nice - refreshing and tasty. I found that there was a little too much onion in my salad, thereby making it too tangy.

Ahh...the Bymark 8oz USDA Prime Burger with brie de meaux and grilled king oyster mushrooms

Burger was huge! The Winterlicious take was slightly different than the regular menu burger which has grilled portobello mushrooms and your choice of tempura onion rings, rocket salad or crisp frites. 

Something else I wasn't expecting - the waiter asked how I would like to order my burger. So I ordered medium rare which was perfect! There was lots of juice in the meat and it soaked the bun since the patty was almost too big for the bun. This made the bottom part of the bun slightly soggy but still absolutely delicious altogether. The bun was lightly buttered and toasted inside while the outside remained the same. Inside there was also some red kale leaves besides the brie and grilled king oyster mushrooms - great combination because it was simple and they all went very well together. 

I'm not too sure I'd pay $35 for the burger - but $25 made this burger well worth it!

We weren't given an option for the side and received the crispy frites which lived up to their name. They felt like they were the ends of the full fries which is not the part of fries that I enjoy. Very brown and very salty so I didn't particularly enjoy them. The dipping sauce of spicy mayonnaise was too spicy so I ordered a non-spicy mayonnaise which turned out to be really good! It was like a garlic mayo similar to tzatziki but a lot smoother (reminded me of the tzatziki sauce I tried at McEwan's supermarket uptown which is amazing by the way - I would totally recommend it even with the $7 price tag) 

Apple crostata with caramel crunch ice cream

The crostata was slightly difficult to eat with a spoon since the shell was harder than I expected. However, it reminded me of warm apple pie and the caramel ice cream on top just melted and oozed onto the spoon when I was taking a bite. I wasn't a big fan of the almost burnt caramel/sugar brown thing on top of the ice cream (I assume that's the "crunch" in caramel crunch ice cream) but the dessert overall was good!

Orange Nanaimo Brownie with Toasted Meringue

The dessert was rich and decadent and vaguely reminded us of an orange Lindt dessert. Very nice! 

Gingerbread cake with sweet potato mousse and maple walnut fudge
I'm not a fan of gingerbread, but even I admitted this was really good - very moist and it held true to the gingerbread taste. The sweet potato cream was interesting, not what I'm used to seeing done with sweet potato and it added a nice touch to the gingerbread cake. I LOVED the maple walnut fudge - I could eat a block of the delectable fudge - WOW! Best part of the cake for me!

Winterlicious here is a great deal! Bymark doesn't disappoint. Good for your wallet and great for your tastebuds. Yum!

Website: http://www.bymark.ca/

Rosewater Supper Club

Rosewater is an upscale dining establishment right next to the financial district. The decor inside is stunning - classy and romantic. The food was mouthwatering - all the items on the Winterlicious menu were appealing and reasonably priced for $20 (excl. tax and tip)

Winterlicious in Toronto started 10 years ago after local restaurants suffered from the fear of the SARS epidemic. Popular restaurants all over the city decided to ban together and offer 3 course prix fixe menus to encourage people to eat out. The idea was so popular that they decided to offer the prix fixe menus twice a year for 2 weeks: Winterlicious (January - February) and Summerlicious (June - July). 

The Prix Fixe menus range from $15-$20 for lunch and $25 - $45 for dinner. 

Inside the main dining room

Truffled Cream of Cauliflower with ice wine Crème Fraiche

The soup was thick and rather heavy, but the creme fraiche really made the difference in the overall soup. I felt that there was the right amount of truffle oil so as not to overwhelm or take away from the actual cauliflower soup. A great way to start the meal!

Parsley Crusted Salmon with steamed garlic clams, yukon gold potatoes and leek chowder

The salmon was also nestled on the cubed yukon potatoes, carrots and clams. But clearly the main attraction was the salmon which was perfect. It was moist & nicely crusted so that every bite was scrumptious (especially with the chowder)! I could go on for days about the chowder - it was heavier than a regular sauce and packed a bunch of flavour. It all worked together and made the dish divine! I'd come back to pay regular price just for the salmon dish alone, but it got even better with dessert:

Pistachio mandarin tartlet with raspberry ice cream

The pistachio tart was heavenly! Seriously decadent and evenly warm throughout the entire tartlet (no cutting corners and microwaving here). I never thought mandarin oranges and pistachio could come together and create such an exquisite dessert - WOW and with combination of the raspberry ice cream and cookie crumbs - absolutely superb. Even though I wasn't very hungry, I literally tried to lick the plate clean and devour every single crumb. Definitely an amazing dessert chef to watch out for here at Rosewater!

Conclusion: Great meal and service at Rosewater! I'd highly recommend it (especially the dessert)!

Website: http://www.libertygroup.com/rosewater/rosewater.html

Real Sports Bar and Grill

This place is awe inspiring for the avid sports fan - approximately 200 HD TVs including a Two storey HD TV right in the center. OMG is it every overwhelming in there! There's something for every type of sports lover there wherever you're sitting.

The sheer size of this place is astounding...

And it's super convenient since my friends work across the street! So you can take an hour lunch and then pop back over or it's a short walk from Union station through the new section of the PATH. 

The Real Sports Burger - HUGE! There was so much meat in this burger that it took me like 1/2 hour to eat it. Great stuff! The burger came up to $12 (excluding tax and tip)

My friend's Black and Blue Burger with portobello mushrooms & blue cheese on top - she enjoyed the burger but couldn't really finish it since we also got an Calamari appetizer which really filled us up. The green salad was great! Cranberries, some nuts (not peanuts), iceberg lettuce and orange/mandarin (?) slices - all tossed together with a subtle but delicious dressing (I definitely should have ordered the salad instead of fries). 

My other friend got a burger too and sweet potato poutine! The poutine was fantastic! Melted cheese curds and gravy on crispy sweet potato fries - I'm surprised this isn't a bigger hit in Toronto.

Conclusion: Great bar food and ambiance - very busy at lunch hour (so make sure you have a reservation to get the best seats in the house to watch your sports)

Website: http://www.realsports.ca/bar

Great Cooks on Eight

The amazing view from the 8th floor of The Bay. Great Cooks on Eight is a restaurant in Downtown Toronto that is only open at lunch (which is not surprising since it was pretty packed at lunch)

The set up of the restaurant - high chairs! 

The elegant menu

Ploughman's lunch - looked amazing and my coworker said he really enjoyed it as well! There were all these cheeses, butters, a fig with nuts and blue cheese, meats and some gourmet toasted bread.

The sandwich of the day! Curried Goat Sandwich on a Rosemary Focaccia bun with arugula, goat cheese and a marmalade spread. I also got the Greens side salad which was light and refreshing.

OMG it was delicious! The lamb was perfect! It wasn't too gamy and with the combination of the focaccia, arugula, goat cheese and the marmalade - it was absolutely amazing. So delicious and super filling (as you can tell by all the meat stacked up in the sandwich). I would definitely recommend this sandwich to everyone (even lamb meat haters) - it's great! Total treat for your tastebuds! The only downside? It's $12-14 for a sandwich at Great Cooks on Eight. Yikes! But totally worth it for an occasional indulgence.

Website: http://www.greatcooks.ca/

Cafe Maxim's Patisserie

Cafe Maxim's offers a prix fixe option where if you add $8 (per person) to your entrée meal, you can get a salad, soup and a slice of one of their cakes which is a pretty decent deal since the cakes are pretty good.

They had two soup specials that day, a creamy borscht soup in the top picture (that was kind of watery) and a minestrone soup (also very watery with a lot of cabbage). 

Since we ordered the Seafood Paella for two, we got a smoked salmon plate as an appetizer which was good! My brother got the normal salad which was decent.

The Duck a l'Orange - I like duck and I like oranges, but I figured out at Cafe Maxim's that I really don't like them together. The orange taste was overpowering here and the duck tasted gamy. This wasn't exactly what I was expecting, but my brother must have liked it because he finished his plate. I don't know if it was a badly done Duck a L'Orange or if I just don't like the combination. My favourite type of cooked bird meat is chicken (although perfectly cooked Ostrich is my secret weakness) and I do occasionally eat duck even if it's not my favourite - but this dish? The duck was terrible.

The Seafood Paella for two - this was well-done! I had quite a lot of Paella in Spain and although this wasn't to the same level of the Paella in Spain - it was still enjoyable. Good food in general - some things that were unexpected but nice were: crab legs - I definitely didn't get that in Spain, and chicken. I couldn't recall if there was Chicken in Seafood Paella? But it was still pretty good! I think this should have been called Seafood Paella for 3 because after I stuffed myself silly - I still had leftovers for lunch the next day.

And now the best part....Cake! This was some chocolate cake my brother got - it was good - but not as good as:

Mango Meringue - oh wow - this was soooo good!!! The Meringue's at Cafe Maxim's are super yummy! They're not as heavy and super sweet as normal French Desserts (mostly because they cater more to Asian tastes which are milder), but they're delicious! The mango pieces and the cream and the crispy outer shell? Wow - I think this is a definite "Must Try" here.

Lastly, the mango cheesecake - not as heavy or sweet as most English/French desserts - but very nicely put together. The crust of the cake was kind of dough-y but the actual cheesecake was very nicely done.

Website: http://cafemaxims.com/index.html