Tapas - perfect for the adventurous!

What better way to try different things on the menu than to have tapas - small plates of food (like dim sum except they can be complete meals).  We tried them many years ago at Casa Barcelona in Bloor Street Village, then the real thing in Madrid.  Both were quite good but what overwhelmed us a little was the way the dishes were brought out all at once.  The mix of tastes confused the palette.  

Small plates restaurant have become very popular in North America.  We visited one when we were in California, The Basin in Saratoga.  Food was not great but we also shared the small plates between 5 people, too many, I think, to get a real taste of the food even if you ordered many plates - everyone wanted to try everything.  Ideally, a small plate should be shared between two, maximum three and if you have a larger group, order two of the same. 

We had an excellent small plate experience at Cava, in Toronto.  For good reasons, this has been rated one of the top ten restaurants in Toronto (by critic Joanne Kates) with Chef Chris Mcdonald at the helm.  We tried six dishes and they were served individually except for the last two when the asparagus was like a side dish for the almost "main" venison. We could have gotten by with four as the two big ones were really main courses - they were bigger than some "big plates" restaurants!  

   

Bruschetta of edamame, grilled green onions, moroccan olives and sicilian tomatoes  - love the ground edamame and the mix of the olives and tomatoes really enhanced the flavour!

Salt cod cake with piperade and chipotle crema - the piperade was a nice contrast to the salt cod in both taste and texture

Seared scallops done to perfection with ragout of artichokes,  cipollini and piquillo peppers - this is more like a "big plate"

Duck magret with trinxat and violet mustard sauce - duck tastes great,  no sauce needed although the sauce was quite interesting

Venison anticucho with a warm red cabbage salad and asparagus with lemon pepper aioli - again aioli hardly needed because the asparagus is so fresh and sweet.  But the venison was the best ever!  It was tender and tasty.  Not normally a cabbage fan, I enjoyed the flavour of this soft pickled red cabbage.

Lemon pistachio baked alaska with saffron-pepper cake and sherry-poached pears -  the pistachio ice cream is the best I have ever tasted - I can actually taste the pistachio!

Apparently Cava make their own desserts, which explains the long dessert list.  The baked alaska was the first item on a list of eleven items!  I just noticed a Valrhona chocolate souffle with Spanish coffee sauce - now why didn't I see that earlier?!  This definitely calls for repeat visits!

And to top it all off - there is free corkage (at least for now) on Sundays!  This really made this a good value restaurant in spite of complaints about the prices.