I spent Thursday like a nerd looking for a prom date, because I called a bunch of 2nd-tier Winterlicious places in attempts to secure reservations for dinner or lunch on Saturday. Not surprisingly they were all booked up. I think part of the reason may have been because I was looking for a restaurant that was within walking distance of city hall on a Saturday.

So not having any definite plans, I figured I would give the Oliver & Bonacini Cafe.Grill in my hood (i.e., Bayview Village/Willowdale) a try. Oliver Bonacini runs a family of local restaurants including perennial -licious favourites Canoe and Auberge du Pommier. I figured the problems I had on Thursday were probably because of the locale, so a suburbian restaurant would be less busy (although surprisingly, Oliver & Bonacini offered a $15 lunch). When I called for a reservation after arriving driving home in the snow on Friday, they said they were full; but invited me to try being a walk-in (good sign).

We showed up on Saturday around 12:30, got a pager and had to wait an hour before getting a seat. Even though Oliver & Bonacini was not as expensive as the other places, it was still decorated in a trendy fashion, reminiscent of the restaurants around the John/Richmond area. For starters I had the Grilled Calamari on sweet & spicy eggplant caponata which was excellent and probably the best Winterlicious dish I had this year (or maybe ever). Pauline had the Roasted Purple & Golden Beet Salad which I originally read as beef and though cool! a beef appetizer. Anyways it was your typical designer salad.

My main course was the Grilled Atlantic Salmon which in itself wasn’t that great, but had good seasoning and looked good (nice fresh & red tomatoes). Pauline had the Classic Tomato Glazed Turkey Meatloaf which was original and not as odd as it sounds. For dessert, I had the Chocolate, Chocolate, Chocolate (flourless dark chocolate torte, milk chocolate ice cream, & white chocolate sauce) while Pauline got the Lemon Merigne Tart, both of which seemed like a cookie-cutter dessert which was disappointing given the quality of the first two courses.

This was the best Winterlicious deal because it was cheap but very good, and well worth the hour wait. The receipt was also very cool as everything was itemized with a -licious ending (i.e., Chocolicious or Calilicious).

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: food, winterlicious