Is the ambiance worth paying for?

One of the most expensive Chinese restaurants in Toronto is Lai Wah Heen (麗華軒) - with rave reviews in Gourmet and the New York Times.  It has been around for many years but we have never been - possibly because it's downtown, also because someone had said eating there was like eating money and we didn't find eating money particularly appealing.  Last week, we ventured in as part of a birthday celebration - a good excuse, especially when someone else was footing the bill.  The food was excellent indeed.  I was pleasantly surprised by the taste of money and I really enjoyed the lunch in a quiet, almost elegant atmosphere with attentive service, multiple plate changes and in general, being engulfed in a sense of luxury and wellbeing - who wouldn't love it!

This week, we went to a simple dim sum restaurant in Scarborough, Full House at Midland and Finch, priding itself as a restaurant serving rural Chinese food, where dim sum was about a third of what it costs at Lai Wah Heen (in some instances, a fifth of the price for some ultra expensive dishes).  Obviously it didn't have the same ambiance - encased in dirty fogged up glass windows and a thread bare carpet cushioned with ancient crumbs.  We were clearly among members of the proletariat.  But we thought the food was good, the wrap for the dumplings just as perfectly done as those at Lai Wah Heen as were the ingredients for some of the dishes.  The only thing lacking was the aesthetics.

One steamed dish, enoki and king mushrooms wrapped in bean curd, tasted very similar at both places. At Lai Wah Heen, it was a special with a truffle, at $5 a piece - a piece being half of a bean curd roll, only enough for one person (see photo below).  At Full House, it's $2.15 for 3 rolls, enough for six.  Unbelievable price difference given that both tasted equally good - granted, the truffle was special.  We got good service as the staff knew us.  When we considered this intellectually, we realized that we were paying mainly for the ambiance (which included the presentation) the week before.  The debate then becomes, are we willing to pay megabucks for the ambiance, the aesthetics?   For the very occasional treat, on very special occasions AND if the person who pays can afford it - yes.  Otherwise, it would be an indulgence - and I would feel guilty...

Steamed bean curd roll of mushrooms and truffle - it is very good, one of the best I've tasted with subtle contrasts in textures and tastes, the truffle is a treat - thumbs up! 

Steamed dumplilng of lobster & shrimp in garlic butter - disappointingly bland in both taste and texture, couldn't taste the lobster at all - thumbs down!

Deep-fried tofu brick with Dungeness crabmeat and shrimp - very good - an 8

Deep-fried prawns and scallop wrapped in bacon - another 8

Wok-fried diced turnip cake with soy sauce - not as good as the regular turnip cake - a 4

Crispy fried pastry of foie gras, shrimp & minced pork - if there were real foie gras in there, it was wasted - a 5

Baked pastry filled with cured ham & shrimp - a 5

Chilled chicken wing marinated in wine sauce - outstanding!  One of the most memorable dishes in the meal!  The chicken wing was deboned, cold and firm, could use a tat more wine in the marinate but otherwise, it's perfect.  With added points for the work involved in deboning and the relatively reasonable price, I would give this a nine and a half.

Maitake mushroom & vegetables in rice roll - great texture and taste - an 8

This was an ordering mistake - I thought I had ordered braised pork belly, but it turned out to be ordinary roast pork belly.  It was very good nevertheless but nothing special although they did give us a good cut - a 6

The perfect ending - gorgeous layered pastry encasing papaya in milk custard - unbelievably good - a 10!

To be quite fair, Lai Wah Heen did offer some unusual dishes not often seen in other restaurants.  For that, it's probably worth an occasional visit.  I'll be thinking about the chicken wings and the papaya pastry for a while...

Trattoria la Casalinga - homecooking in the Oltrano

We were told that we've got to try the famous tripe in Florence so we made an effort to try it at least once in a restaurant.   Our landlord had recommended the Trattoria la Casalinga to us as a neighbourhood family-run restaurant where we could taste some real Italian homecooking.  The husband and wife team ran the restaurant with their sons and daughters working as wait staff - a true family business.  As it turned out, the restaurant was on quite a number of lists, including Rick Steves' and so we were lucky to get a seat when we got there at opening.  Even as we were eating, people started lining up inside the restaurant (there was no lobby).

We ordered the tripe - it was a  big serving.  To our surprise, the San Deigo couple at the table beside us asked if they could try some of our tripe - they've probably read the same tour book we did but didn't have the guts to order a whole plate.  Of course we didn't mind and was glad someone was sharing the cholesterol.  They offered to share their tagliatelle in exchange and I also obliged - I never refuse free food... 

Trippa alla fiorentina

The pasta with pesto was perfectly al dente and delicious

The veal too was good as was the blueberry tart dessert - basically I just went up to the bakery case and pointed - they do take out too

What a sorry hungry-looking bunch!

Two Stars

It is not often that we happen to be on vacation, within a half hour of a Michelin-rated 2 stars restaurant, have the means to both get there and pay for the meal - so we went all out to make sure we planned our last day in Tuscany around lunch at Arnolfo with Chef Gaetano Trovato.  We chose lunch instead of dinner because we didn't want to drive on country roads in the dark - it was the same menu.  All six of us were very excited by the thought of the lunch and looked forward to the event with great anticipation.  We spent our morning in the street market in the new part of town but really our heart was on the lunch.   We got lost looking for the restaurant and were relieved when we found it and was warmly welcomed by Giovanni Trovato, brother of the Chef and co-owner.

The restaurant is in the historical part of Colle Val d'Elsa, a medieval Tuscan town.  (Visit my travel blog for photos of the town.) The main dining area was on the street level of what looked like a residence that is on the hillside - even the lower level was bright and open.  We were glad we chose lunch because for once it's great to see our food in broad daylight!   The formal dining room had an understated elegance even though the chandelier and the stemware are ostentatiously Bacharrat.  The window looked out onto a sloped field (of sunflowers in the summer) - it was a picture perfect windowscape.  And so was the meal...

In the 4 hours that it took us to go through our lunch, the farmer had finished ploughing his field.   The owner told us that it was a field of sunflowers before it was ploughed.  Imagine how stunning that would have been...

The entrance portal on one of the main streets in the old town

The lower level sitting room

The book-lined dining room

There were two set menus - we ordered both and tried everything.  One is the "Territorio" - translated on the menu as "Territory & Research" - and is really the Tuscan menu.  The other one is called "Essence" which is a seafood menu.  I no longer see this on the website.

There were two amuse bouche, I've only captured one here: crispy melon, zucchini stuffed with cream cheese, pink shrimp with celeriac, tuna tartare, chicken liver pate with hazelnut and grape compote - all amazing contrasts in textures and tastes

A selection of breads, all deliciously bite-sized

I love the cover for the soup!

Tuna with sweet sour onion swimming in chickpea soup (I confess I'm not going to rave about this one)

This one, however, is superb: scallop with caviar swimming in pumpkin soup with orange compote.

Pigeon breast with goose liver, grape sauce and chestnut paste

Anchovies with fennel foam, onions under the foam, saffron with scampi

Lasagnita with lentils and lobster, clams

Ravioli blue lobster vervain with enoki mushrooms

Pasta with tiger shrimp and squid, broccoli

Pasta stuffed with sausage, parmesan cheese, cabbage and lima bean sauce

No you can't eat this, but I just want to show the place of honour for my camera - its very own stool!

John Dory with coffee sauce, Jerusalem artichoke, fois gras terrine

Rabbit with curry, wine, liver, olives and capers

Suckling pig ribs, lamb with celeriac and red currant

Beef cheek with red wine, porcini mushrooms, squash flowers and squash

Anise-flavoured figs with San Giovesia ice cream

Chocolate with chestnut (mmm...GOOD!)  and ginger ice cream

Petit fours: pistachio macaroon with almond flour, tartlet and fig compote, spice panna forte, beignet lemon custard, crispy almond chocolate with salt - hard to imagine each exquisite piece can taste so good even at the end of the four hour meal

Blueberries custard with cotaceni biscuits and spicy ice cream - a perfect ending

It was a very enjoyable meal and the best part for me was the quality and the variety and how we were able to try and savour a little of everything - which was of course the intent of tasting menus.

My special thanks to my friends H & S Gotts both for the idea of going to Arnolfo's, arranging it and best of all, remembering all the details about the lunch - without which this blog post would not have been possible!

Eating in the oldest butcher shop in Tuscany

Lunch at the Antica Macelleria Falorni was a new eating experience for us.  The butcher shop is reputedly the oldest in Tuscany and still run by the 8th generation of the same family since it was founded in 1729.  It was one of the main reasons why we visited Greve in Chianti.  For more pictures of the shop and the town, please visit Travels with rarecat.

We sat down at the picnic tables outside the shop, looked at the neatly folded one page menu (perfect for taking away as a souvenir) and waited for the waiter.  After a while, one of us finally read the front page of the menu that outlined "how it works" - order at the till;  hand the orders in at the counter; help yourself from the take-away fridge; take the food to your table and enjoy your meal!  There was even a microwave that you could use to heat up your food but most unique for us - a self-dispensing wine tasting machine for which you could purchase a card at the counter.

Lunch turned out to be a picnic...

We had the prosciutto, salami and pecorino with fig jam - all tasted good (especially the pecorino) but not distinctive - I wondered if it had anything to do with the paper napkins we were eating out of...

Notice how fatty the meat was 

Ham, ham and more ham... 

Many customers hovering around the wine-dispensing machine 

Seafood in Cinque Terre

We had lunch in Vernazza, one of the five villages that made up "Cinque Terre" on the Italian west coast.  (For more photos on the village, please visit my travel blog Travels with rarecat.)  We were a group of eleven but we split up into two groups for ease of ordering.  In any case, we tried to "maximize" our food experience - the motto was try as many kinds of seafood as we possibly could!

In general the seafood was fresh tasting.  The one dish we were looking forward to was the fish baked in salt, just because it was the house specialty and the restaurant made a show of its presentation.  In reality, I found the fish too salty and was disappointed the skin was not crispy, in fact it was quite tough (likely from the salt), and not great for eating, no wonder the server was about to throw it out when I stopped him.  I would think that most seafood already have enough natural sodium in them that very little salt, if any at all, is needed in their preparation.  This is clearly a recipe that needs updating.

Fried shrimp

Mussels and squid

Anchovies made three different ways - deep fried tasted best for me

Octopus!  Love this!

Scampi and squid - personally I don't see much point in scampi - neither shrimp nor lobster and not tasting as good as either...

The galley kitchen which opened out onto the street

The fish baked in salt presented with a flourish

Good fileting! 

Looked good but...

Where we ate - prime location in Vernazza on the main street right by the water