Eating Off the Hill: Summerlicious Prix Fixe at Bannock

I'm in Scarborough for the summer, so expect some even more off the hill food reviews in the weeks and months to come. My first installment comes from a trip downtown to Queen and Bay to sample the Summerlicious prix fixe menu at Bannock.

I will say up front that I was disapointed, although that could partially stem from a misunderstanding of Bannock's concept and offering. I thought it was a somewhat upscale reasturant offering Indegenous-inspired dishes. Instead, it's actually marketed as midmarket Canadian comfort food.

So I went in with an expectations mismatch, and was surprised to find plastic menus and no particularly Indigenous dishes on the menu except the namesake Bannock -- more on that shortly.

Still, I was interested in the menu, which, as part of the City of Toronto's Summerlicious promotion, offered an appetizer, main and desert for $33 as a way of encouraging people to sample more local reasturants.

As my appetizer, I selected the "Fried Mac & Cheese  with aged cheddar and basil pesto." I was a bit put off my the two keptchup packets it came with. I mean, I realize this isn't the more swank place I thought it was, but I don't think Moxie's would give you ketchup packets with your meal. I had lunch at Darcy McGee's at the airport a few weeks back and they gave me ketchup in a ceramic cup. I didn't use these packets, so hopefully they were saved and not disposed of.

Still, as fried Mac & cheese go it was actualy pretty good. Other times I've had this it's more thin like a triangle, so the mac & cheese inside isn't particularly cheesy or pasta-ish. This though was done in cubes. which allowed the cheesy goodness inside to be enjoyed on its on merits.

For my main, I nearly got the meat pie, but ended up deciding on the"Braised Ontario Lamb Pappardelle with tomato, olive oil, parmesan, lamb ragù and rosemary. It was just OK. I would have liked more parm, and perhaps the addition of some garlic for added flavour. It wasn't overly saucy and the lamb was dry. Very much nothing special.

For the last course I selected their featured dessert, described as " Haagen-Dazs Extraaz Bananas Peanut Butter Chip Ice Cream with graham cracker, torched marshmallow and screeched strawberries." First of all, I don't like marshmellows so let's just remove the from the equation. The highlight was the banana ice cream. The bready thing it was served on though didn't seem very grahm crackery to me though. And the strawberroes, while perfectly fine strawberries, I don't know exactly what made them screeched. I didn't finish it as it didn't seem particularly worth the many calories I was no doubt consuming.

Whick brings me back to the namesake Bannock. Since I didn't know when (probably never) I'd be back, while I was sure to be stuffed by the prix fixe, when placing my order at the beginning of the evening I also ordered the mixed bannock box appetizer, just so I could try it. Unfortunately, they seemed to forget it as it never arrived. I didn't bring it up because it didn't show up on the bill and I was full enough anyways, but still, would have liked to have tried it and I did order it.

Anyway, overall I was disapointed by Bannock. Part of it was a mismatch of expectations on concept and menu, but still, their actuall concept was executed mediocrely.

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Eating OFF the Hill: Perkins Bakery & Reasturant not worth the trip

When my famly moved back to Canada from a posting in Germany in 1990, we picked up the vehicle in Trenton and drove accoss the continent, through the U.S., to our new home in Comox. Staying in hotels for a week was good fun for a kid, as was having every meal in reasturants. I remember one of those stops was Perkins Bakery & Reasturant, as the cooler mug stayed in the kitchen cabinet for a decade or more. So last weekend, learning there was one accross from the St. Laurent Centre, I decided to check it our for dinner.

It's an American family-style dinner, with all-day breakfast and the usual sabdwiches, burgers and entrees. During my menu pre-scouting I was drawn to the country fried steak, an unhealthy southern classic. Basically, it's a steak, battered and breaded like fried chicken, with a country gravy. Sounds crazy, I know, but I've had it in the U.S. before and it's really quite delish.

So, 45 minutes on the bus later and I'm there, and looking over the menu as a mere formality. Except, what the what, I don't see the country fried steak. Asking the waiter if they have it, he looks at me incredulously, like he cannot imagine such a thing could possibly exist. Disapointed, I settle on the steak medallions with mushrooms, corn and tater tots.

Let me start with the good. The tater tots were crispy and delicious. After previously blogging about pitching tater tot poutine to Parliamentary Food Services, I had been craving tater tots and htis ticked the box. And the corn was good, with the light application of peper adding a certain something.

But those are two sides that are hard to screw up. You don't order a steak dinner for the sides -- you order it for the steak. And this steak simply sucked. I ordered it medium, it was well done -- no pink in evidence. And it was clearly just the lowest possible grade of steak they could buy. Not saying it was tough or grizzly, it just didn't taste good at all. I'm not expecting The Keg here, but they could have done signifigantly better.

So, left with a poor taste in my mouth, I decided to give them a chance for redemption with desert, ordering the Peanut Butter Silk cake.

It was OK, but nothing to write home about. The peanut butter portion of the cake was tasty and so was the choclate base, and I enjoyed it much. But the crust was industrial and bland, detracting from my enjoyment of the rest of the cake.

The reasturant was semi-busy with mainly senior citizen couples, and probably hadn't been renovated since the last time I was at a Perkins in 1990. Despite not being busy, service was spotty -- waiting far too long for a drink refill, with my empty glass perched on the edge of the table, before finally having to flag someone down.

Not worth the price or the trek; won't be back.

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