Showing posts with label cannoli. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cannoli. Show all posts

Oretta (Toronto)


A scroll through Oretta’s Instagram tags and you’ll see it’s a beautiful restaurant with a lavish dining room. Sure, it’s gorgeous, but there’s also something eerily familiar about it. Looking around, there’s the airy high ceilings and blush pink colour scheme of Figo, the art deco brass accents from La Banane, and in the centre of the room, a huge round bar that also sits in Lena. 

Indeed, there’s nothing wrong with having elements similar to other restaurants, but the sense of déjà vu kept sneaking in as I sipped on the tasty a la nonna ($13), a spiced pear puree and Prosecco cocktail, that could replace a mimosa any day. 

As I thought about the meal, I couldn’t help but see how the experience followed the popular “hamburger method” of providing feedback – start positive, give the hard meaty truth, then end positive. To begin, the fried parsnip polenta ($5) was fantastic with the ultra-crispy golden crust, creamy interior, and sprinkles of thyme and honey. A small slip may be how the cook sprinkles on salt, likely after the sticks are intricately stacked, as I found the ones on the bottom didn’t have quite enough seasoning leaving the last bite not nearly as good as the first.


Torontonians are spoiled with the quality of Italian establishments in the city. All the sudden, serving freshly made pasta is just table stakes for most restaurants. Oretta’s tagliatelle ($19) arrives as a large mound of pasta tossed in Nonna Lea’s ragu and a generous sprinkling of parmigiano. All in all, it’s a pasta Nonna Lea can likely stand behind, the red sauce was really hearty and meaty. If only there was more of the tasty ragu, as I did find it a tad sticky and difficult to untangle the long strands of pasta.


In lieu of the traditional creamy liquid rice dish, the risotto al salto ($22) pan fries a squash risotto pancake to create crispy exterior. With plenty of castelmagno fonduta incorporated into the rice, the dish is fairly cheesy, so it almost tastes like deep fried mac ‘n’ cheese balls with a creamy plump mushroom sauce over top. Overall, it’s a good dish, but works better as a shared appetizer. As a main, it’s a bit heavy and not quite satisfying on its own. 


From the moment the spalla d'agnello ($28) arrived I knew the lamb shoulder was overcooked … looking like slices of thick pork chop, there wasn’t an ounce of fat, let alone pinkness in the meat. One bite into the lamb confirmed my suspicions, it was tough and the well seared crust so hard it was scratchy on the way down. Even the medley of creamy baby potato pieces, salty lamb bacon, and crunchy cauliflower didn’t help. Sure, these would have been good as a side, but not nearly saucy enough to save the terribly dry lamb.


Thankfully, the chef’s selection of sweets in the assaggi dolci ($16) saved the meal from a dreadful ending. It included the freshest cannoli I’ve ever tasted - the shell presumably freshly fried as it was still extremely crispy and distinct from the creamy ricotta filling. Even the pistachios were left in larger chunks, so there was an intense crunchiness to the cannoli, which finished much too quickly.


Make sure you dig into the rich dark chocolate cake while it’s still hot and gives off a lovely cocoa aroma. Although the ice cold vanilla gelato would pair with the cake, it’s equally enjoyable on its own since it arrives on a bed of chocolate cookie crumbs, which when mixed into the ice cream gave it a lovely cookies and cream taste. What a great selection of desserts including wonderfully thin and nutty peanut brittle dipped in dark and white chocolate, sweet stick-to-your-teeth honeycomb candy (the honey toffee inside a Crunchie bar), and moist squares of almond cake.

All in all, another decent, but not excellent Italian restaurant has joined the fold. My parting thoughts of the restaurant: a pretty but dry hamburger.

Overall mark - 7.5 out of 10


How To Find Them
 Location: Toronto, Canada
 Address: 633 King Street West
 Website: http://oretta.to/

Follow me on twitter to chat, be notified about new posts and more - https://twitter.com/GastroWorldBlog
____________________________
Gastro World's Grading System

  • Anything under 5 - I really disliked and will never go back
  • 6 - decent restaurant but I likely won't return
  • 7 - decent restaurant and I will likely return
  • 8 - great restaurant that I'd be happy to recommend
  • 9 - fantastic restaurant that I would love to visit regularly and highly recommend
  • 10 - absolute perfection!


Is That It? I Want More!

Other Gastro World posts similar to this:


Oretta Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

Jump (Toronto)

Location: Toronto, Canada
Address: 18 Wellington Street West
Type of Meal: Lunch

Jump’s reopening brought with it an open concept dining room, the removal of much of their plush banquette seating and the addition of large stunning scotch & wine feature walls.  A new patio arriving just in time for the warm weather is also a welcomed addition and usually full.


Given Jump’s proximity to the financial district, it’s the perfect place for a lunch, especially during Summerlicious.  In line with the warm weather, I decided to start with the Ontario summer salad.  The salad was a mix of green; surprisingly, Jump decided not to mix in other colours to give it some contrast – what happened to Ontario tomatoes or cheese which could have jazzed up the salad?  Rather, it consisted of shaved asparagus, leaves of baby kale and pistachios.  The dressing was a poor choice (fennel) as there wasn’t enough flavour to do anything to the salad.  Instead, it just felt like I was eating individual ingredients with the boldest flavour coming from the pistachios. 

Pretty disappointing start to the meal, I’d suggest getting the tomato tarte tatin, which my coworker ordered and looked much tastier.  To be fair, this was also the dish our waiter suggested.  As a warning, the dish really isn’t a “tarte” but rather sits on a piece of bread. Nonetheless, a significant amount of fresh ricotta and tomatoes top the bread so the dish looked satisfying.

Sadly, my main was another let down – I ordered the BBQ sustainable B.C. Albacore tuna.  The tuna was cold, hardly the BBQ I was expecting; but, to make it worse arrived unflavoured and slightly fishy tasting.  Luckily, my coworker had ordered the same dish so I realized the tuna was missing the sauce.  After asking the waiter to bring me a side of it (a thickened teriyaki glaze with a hint of spice) the fishy taste was luckily masked. 

The menu described the dish as being accompanied by spinach and grilled king oyster mushrooms, so I was expecting warm sides and those ingredients.  The “spinach” was uncooked and unflavoured, reminding me of the lackluster first course.  Moreover, I highly suspect the vegetables weren’t spinach as didn’t taste or look like it.  The “oyster mushroom” was grilled but once again lacked any seasoning and relied solely on the sauce I luckily procured.  Like the “spinach” it was substituted with a king mushroom rather than the promised oyster, but I didn’t particularly mind the switch.  Overall, the menu did a terrible job at describing the course, which also consisted of julienned carrots and fried taro slivers.

Once again, I gazed longingly at my coworker’s crab BLT, which looked more satisfying with the large brioche bun and healthy portion of fried vegetable chips.  Alas, this meal was all about ordering remorse.

Jump’s best dish off of this Summerlicious lunch was the cannoli offered for dessert.  I’ve mentioned many times that I’m not a huge dessert fan so it’s the worse when that’s the best course of a meal.  However, the cannolis were crispy, filled with a thick delicious cream and accompanied by a nice flavourful lemon curd.  Finally, some flavour after a bland first two courses!



My past experiences with Jump, albeit ordered off their regular menu, were much better than this visit.  It’s unclear if they’ve recently changed their chef along with the revamp. But, if these are the dishes on their new menu, someone actually needs to taste it and add some flavour.  If the food quality is staying this way, Jump may become a drinks only place for me.
Is Summerlicious worth it?

As a special feature to the Summerlicious blogs, I will attempt to calculate the savings being offered (based on my meal selection).

Summerlicious - $20

Regular menu - $45 - salad* ($11.25), tuna ($24.95) and cannoli* ($9)

Savings - $25 or 56%

* All the items aren't on their regular menu; prices based on the winter salad, grilled salmon and regular dessert prices


Overall mark - 5 out of 10



Like the blog?  You can now follow me on twitter for notifications - https://twitter.com/GastroWorldBlog

____________________________
Gastro World's Grading System
  • Anything under 5 - I really disliked and will never go back
  • 6 - decent restaurant but I likely won't return
  • 7 - decent restaurant and I will likely return
  • 8 - great restaurant that I'd be happy to recommend
  • 9 - fantastic restaurant that I would love to visit regularly and highly recommend
  • 10 - absolute perfection!
For further general discussions about this blog please refer to http://gastroworldblog.blogspot.com/2012/09/welcome-to-gastro-world.html