Lai Toh Heen
692 Mount Pleasant Rd., Toronto, 416-489-8922. Dinner for two with wine, tax and tip, $170.
I don't normally consider it cricket to review restaurants till they've been open for at least two weeks and had time to iron out some kinks, but my impending summer hiatus has made me impatient. There is also the argument that, like theatrical presentations, restaurants that open and take people's money are fair game and deserve scrutiny.
Lai Toh Heen, child of the esteemed Lai Wah Heen (in the Metropolitan Hotel on Chestnut Street), opened on May 20 where Square used to be on Mount Pleasant. The idea of having a high-end Chinese restaurant north of St. Clair is exceedingly appealing to many people with pockets deep enough to pay the freight, hence an instantly populated dining room.
We adore Lai Wah Heen and expect the same combo of smooth service and luxe food at this new spot. They're billing the food as "Chinese tapas," about which I reserve judgment. The menu is mostly dim sum and appetizers, with a small list of main courses.
Having been seduced repeatedly by Lai Wah Heen's dim sum, one expects the best. But Lai Toh Heen's dim sum is mediocre: Multicoloured dumpling with scallop and fish roe is bland and a touch dry; spring roll with crab and chicken is pedestrian; deep-fried roll with scallops and squash is mushy and, as for the tuna roll, the person who decided to put canned tuna in a dumpling deserves a life sentence of Big Mac attacks.
High notes can be found among the appetizers. Foie gras with shredded duck in sesame and icewine plum sauce is executed beautifully. Ginger extract makes magic with asparagus and beans, and diced abalone scented with five-spice powder is a delicacy. But who needs the greasy pastry on minced quail, or the huge, overcooked prawn with toasted garlic and chili -- a heinous crime when one shrimp costs $16.
We are equally disappointed with the soups. Seafood consommé looks cute in a papaya "bowl," but it has almost no flavour. Ditto the creamy chicken broth of the wonton soup.
The kitchen also does harm to lamb rack, slicing it into thin chops and deep-frying it for too long in batter. Another miscalculation is braised pork belly flambéed tableside with lychee liqueur: The pork is more fat than meat, which is not going to wow north Toronto, and the sauce tastes of alcohol and nothing else. We're impressed that they've found fresh spring morels to put with stir-fried quail breast, but the bird is overcooked and the dish is strangely boring.
The three best items on the menu are Shanghai noodles with minced pork and eggplant, truffle-scented crispy chicken (moist meat, crisp skin, overwhelming scent of truffle) and oolong-tea-smoked duck breast with seaweed (superbly tender and moist duck with sweet-and-sour seaweed salad).
Will owner Henry Wu fix Lai Toh Heen? I have every confidence. He is an unimpeachable restaurateur (Senses, Lai Wah Heen, Diva at the Met in Vancouver) who hates to settle for second-best. No wonder he has made a gorgeous room, with elegant dark wood accents, comfy suede chairs, giant walnut-framed mirrors and an atmosphere of warmth and calm throughout. Glorious wooden screens divide the space into separate dining areas, each small and cozy. There is also a tiny perfect lounge with a lit-up onyx bar.
So give Lai Toh Heen a few weeks and let them tweak it. One wonders if Wu has eaten every item on the menu yet. If not, he might wish to do so . . . post haste.
Oro
45 Elm St., Toronto, 416-597-0155. Dinner for two with wine, tax and tip, $150.
Great Italiana: I, who am desperately in love with Italian food, have been terribly remiss about Oro. Because it was far from great the last time I ate there, several years ago, I have stayed away. Perhaps chef Dario Tomaselli was having an off night, for his dinner last week was as good as it gets for nouvelle Italian in Toronto.
This guy is a grand seducer whose best friends are fish. He dusted tuna with crumbled porcini and set it, perfectly seared, atop sweet-and-sour caponata with creamed scallions and onions and mushroom Madeira jus. He roasted grouper perfectly and partnered it with maple-soy froth and Israeli couscous made tasty with strong stock. He imprisoned fragrant black truffle fragments in pappardelle noodles and added wild mushrooms to the sauce for more layers of fungal delight. This is a chef who ought not to be ignored.
Sassafraz
100 Cumberland St., Toronto, 416-964-2222 Brunch for two including wine, tax and tip, $80.
I have never been a beauty, which perhaps explains my inability to understand the appeal of Sassafraz. So many pretty people, such a pretty terrace -- and such ghastly food and service.
I tried it again, for brunch this time, on the theory that there's less to screw up with that meal. Guess again. The crab eggs Benedict, which promised hollandaise sauce, featured overcooked eggs under a tomato cream sauce that recalled Thousand Island dressing, and a round moulded potato cake that seemed to have been fashioned from boiled potatoes. Scary. Crab quiche was short on flavour and somewhat dry. Salad of goat cheese and greens was dressed with another Thousand Island wannabe.
But the best was the service. When asked whether they had any fresh juice, our server said: "All our juices are fresh." Terrific. We asked what fresh juices he had and he rhymed off a list that included cranberry. Was he sure the cranberry juice was fresh squeezed? He insisted it was. I ordered it. It tasted just like what I buy at Loblaws in a plastic bottle. As if lying to us were not enough, the servers had no clue who ordered what.