Bling Food 1

Madeline's (601 King Street West, Toronto)

Chef Susur Lee's (sort of) new restaurant on King Street West is a family (Chinese) style restaurant. You're meant to order several different dishes to share among your table. Instead of deliberating over the appetizing menu, the four of us had a go at two orders of the tasting menu for two. For $40 a piece, expectations were high. 

Forgive me for forgetting most of what was in the dishes, but they were chock-full of ingredients that I just didn't hear.

Starter: Apple something prosciutto salad. Berta wasn't a fan of the salty meat with the sweet apples, but I was. Then again, I like salty and by transitive properties I like prosciutto. The flat circular pastry at the bottom was pretty neat. It was like an apple pastry with salty meat and leafy greenness on top.

Next: Something something artichoke soup.

First off, it was pretty cool when four waiters came out at the same time to serve us each our bowl of soup. Synchronized food serving should be a sport. The soup was great, according to all of us. It had good taste, nice crunchy texture from the stuffs on top, and it seemed to have a bit of crème fraîche.

More: Giant scallops with crouton. I totally forgot about this until the pictures came. The scallops were pretty huge and awesome. They were like little pucks of soft, nicely textured goodness.

Main course: Beef with wild blueberries, choy, and sweet potatoes. I'm not a fan of berries, but the texture of the meat was pretty good. Not amazing, but it was pretty good. As people whose diet (presently and/or in the past) includes regular intake of choy, we all thought that they were way too mushy for any of our likings. It also had a weird bitter taste that none of us were accustomed to. This was our least favourite dish of the night. The sweet potatoes apparently had some cheese, which I did not taste. They weren't bad though, and I think there were some nuts in there too.

Dessert: Something-berry sorbet, chocolate apricot molten lava cake, and fried coconut vanilla custard. Can't comment on the berry crap that I did not eat. Of the two sweets that I actually consumed, the chocolate one was the most exciting. The apricots added a bit of sourness to the melty chocolate inside the cake. I think it was a good combination, but chocolate traditionalists (whatever those are) might not appreciate the added flavour. The inside of the fried thing tasted a bit like cream. Both sides of the table left a large chunk of it on the plate. 

Haina and Jess thought the fried custard was too large and "very Chinese", but they enjoyed the sorbet and wished it was bigger.

Amusing weirdness: Jess and Berta were discussing the lighting behind us, which was blue. The rest of the restaurant had a reddish glow. As Jess mentioned that she would've preferred the red side, the lights behind us changed to red. That is the only time that the colour of the lights changed. I wonder if they heard us. :P

Also, Berta's champagne tasted more like sparkling wine to me. It wasn't as exciting as I thought it'd be. Then again, I'm too poor to know what good champagne is supposed to taste like.

I'd go back again... when I have a job that pays me enough to eat there.