Winterlicious (and Wintercity) started on Friday and Pauline, Ida, Peter, Nelson, Kitty, Janet, Norris and I went to our first dinner yesterday. This year my pick was Truffles at the Four Seasons Hotel near the ROM. It is one of the top-tier Winterlicious restaurants, although not as famous as others such as Canoe. On making the reservations, I expected a hell of a time trying to get through, but fortunately with the aid of AMEX Front of the Line, and arriving at work before nine, I was able to score a prime weekend evening reservation on my second call!

Truffles is famous for its former Executive Chef Lynn Crawford, who frequently appeared on Restaurant Makeover on the Food Network; as well as being the only restaurant in Toronto that received a Five Diamond rating from the CAA/AAA, a rating it has achieved for 14 years in a row. It has a seating capacity of 80, and was packed last night. We had the first sitting, at 6PM, which in retrospect was fortunate. I heard reviews and rumors of parties waiting up to 45 minutes for their reservations, and slow service; probably because there were parties like us who sat and didn’t order for 45 minutes while waiting for our party to complete. So in a way, the first sitting is better if you’re able to eat so early.

Between Pauline and I, we were able to order all the choices on the menu except for the vegetarian dish. I was fond of both appetizers but in browsing other Winterlicious menus after the event, I found that butternut squash and goat cheese were popular appetizers at many restaurants. However, they were both interesting and the highlight of the meal for me. I ordered the Beef Bourguignonne for my main course, and it was not bad. The most interesting thing about this dish was that it had a layer of mashed potatoes that looked like pizza dough. For dessert, I had the Warm Molten Chocolate and Raspberry Cake which was reasonable but I didn’t like the molten Chocolate.

The dishes were quaint and decorated superbly as you would expect from an upscale restaurant. It was sufficient food, although I expect that it was partly due to the butter and dessert. The environment and attendants were professional. As the dinner progressed, particularly between the main course and dessert, the service began to slow down; presumably because the kitchen and servers were very busy. There was also more, and less light than I expected in the restaurant. From the website, it seemed as though the dinning hall was bright, but the room we were in was pretty dark. However, spotlights enabled me to do exposures at about 1/20 at f/2.8 at ISO1600. Not pretty, but workable. We were also sat at a circular table rather than the usual rectangular ones expected from a Western restaurant. This was a worthwhile Winterlicious dinner for the price.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: food, winterlicious