Scaramouche Pasta Bar and Grill

It was a pretty huge week of eating.  My husband just celebrated a milestone birthday and to us that means a lot of dinners.  We hit a couple of our favourite special occasion spots.  First we went to Scaramouche Pasta Bar and Grill. This restaurant is very close to our place (less than 5 minutes) and a place we go for special occasions, but sometimes just for a date night.  If you don’t know about Scaramouche, there are a couple of things to point out.  When you pull up (to complimentary valet), the first thing you see is a condo.  You wouldn’t think a restaurant this great would be in a spot like this.  There are two restaurants in one – the Restaurant is very high-end, and apparently one of the city’s best (I’ve never been ) and the Pasta Bar which is slightly more casual with pasta as the focus.  The views are spectacular.  You can see all of downtown and when we went, it was beautifully decorated for Christmas.  Now to the food…

Sometimes I get the soup special, it is usually not a combination you would ever guess.  I can almost promise it’s never a basic tomato.  That night, we shared a composed Caesar salad.  The romaine hearts are beautifully plated with a little chopped egg (we opted for no egg) and delicious Parmesan.

For mains, we always get pasta.  It’s fresh and homemade and incredibly interesting combinations that I haven’t seen anywhere else.  My husband’s (and mom’s) favourite is the peppercorn fettuccine.   This is a staple on the menu.  It’s a cream based sauce with beef tenderloin, mushrooms, pine nuts and bread crumbs.  The pine nuts and bread crumbs add a great texture.  The meat is always juicy and perfectly cooked.  It’s super peppery, but that’s what you need to expect when you order a dish like this.  I always sneak a couple bites.

The menu here is constantly changing with very few items that are always on it.  I usually go for the gnocchi.  They are bigger than most, but very light and airy.  Like eating little clouds with interesting and different sauces.  This time it came with mixed wild mushrooms (no button mushrooms to be found), crispy shallots, wilted (not bitter) greens and duck confit.  Sometimes I find duck to be too gamey, but this was tender and not too intense.  There wasn’t a lot of duck meat, but the mushrooms made up for it.  The sauce was more of a jus and believe me, I wasn’t leaving a drop.

The star of the show is always the dessert.  They have an amazing pastry chef, who I’m sure makes delicious pastries, but we keep going back for the coconut cream pie.  The crust is flaky and tender.  The filling is creamy, dense and rich.  It’s topped with white chocolate curls.  It’s really quite beautiful.  They also make it special for birthdays by writing ‘Happy Birthday’ in chocolate on the plate.  Even if you think you don’t like coconut, try it.  You won’t be sorry.  Whole pies are even available to go!

Dreamy cream pie

1 Benvenuto Pl (Avenue and St Clair)

http://www.scaramoucherestaurant.com/

Lil’ Baci

We had been trying to go out with some friends for a while, but never found time until recently.  I made the suggestion that we try Lil’ Baci on Yonge.  I had previously been to the Queen location a few years ago and thought this might be a good neighbourhood place close by.  I can’t say I loved it.

When my friend ordered the fresh cremini e pecorino salad, the waitress warned us that it was only mushrooms and celery, no lettuce.  When the salad came, it was a bunch of cut up raw mushrooms.  Totally not what she expected.  The lack of celery was probably an innocent error (wasn’t on the menu), but it might be worth saying that the salad is completely raw.  The dressing did happen to be very tasty – a tart, fresh, house made dressing.  I started with one of their daily crostini – mushrooms and truffle oil.  These were sauteed and more like what we expected the salad to taste like.  They had a few interesting crostini and I would definitely be interested in trying 3 for $8 (the other choice is 1 for $3) next time I go back.

Mushroom crostini

For mains, we were pretty boring.  Margherita pizza and spaghetti and meatballs for everyone.  The pizza came about 5 minutes before the pastas so it cooled down while we waited for the pasta for the rest of the table.  The pizza had a pure tomato sauce with a good crust.  The cheese was a good fresh mozzarella, but wasn’t melted enough for me.  It was too chewy.  The pasta was delicious.  You could tell it was homemade and the sauce was a great, smooth, sweet tomato (different from the pizza sauce).  The meatballs were nice and light.  I would recommend pasta and will definitely be having pasta next time.

Not as good as it looks pizza

Best: Spaghetti and meatballs.  This delicious homemade pasta made for a great hearty meal.

Not the best: Margherita pizza.  This just might be a preference or timing thing, but it wasn’t for me.  It was one of the only pizzas that we didn’t even take home the leftovers…

http://www.lilbaci.com/

2013 Yonge St (between Davisville and Eglinton)

PC Black Label Vodka Sauce

I’m not Italian.  I enjoy pasta like everyone else.  I like a tomato sauce, I’ll eat a cream sauce, but I love vodka sauce.  There’s something special about a rose sauce with a little something extra.  I’ve always found jarred/canned/anything-other-than-homemade pasta sauces so blah.  Then everything changed…

PC Black Label Vodka Sauce is, hands-down, the best mass-produced jarred pasta sauce I have ever tasted.  This was one of the very first PC Black Label products I tried.  I bought it right around launch and once I tried it literally bought every jar I could find.  Then it was out of stock for a couple of months – those were sad days, I tried a bunch of Loblaws to find it until magically it was back!  I am a huge evangelist about things I love (part of the reason this section of the blog exists) and believe me, I started spreading the word.  I must have sold hundreds of jars by now!

It has become a staple in our house.  A quick weeknight meal.  Penne, chili flakes for some spice and some Parmesan cheese.  The sauce has the right zingy balance of tomato, a little cream, vodka and cheese to add something a little different.  This isn’t your average tomato sauce.  I promise you won’t look at jarred sauces the same way again.  Try it, you’ll be hooked!

Photo from presidentschoice.ca

7 Numbers (on Eglinton)

Sometimes it’s harder to find old standbys that you can trust than new and hip places you will only go once.  I had been to 7 Numbers on the Danforth, but not on Eg.  It was a while ago and I liked it, but didn’t love it.  Recently a friend told me I should try the Eglinton location and then about a week later another friend suggested we go.  I’m happy I said yes.

Right when you walk in, there is an Italian grandmother cooking.  You can tell this is the real deal.  The menu changes nightly (from what I can tell, there is a lot of consistency, but no guarantees).  We got there around 6:30 so we had our choice of seats, but it definitely filled up as the night went on.  The prices are far below what you would expect and for what it’s worth, which means you can order more!  My recommendation is that you don’t order a la carte, but that you go with the AMAZING $29 per person family style meal.  Get ready for great value and a lot of yumminess.

To start, we had a plate full of 3 salads – tomato and bocconcini; arugula, goat cheese and roasted pepper (freshly roasted, not oily jarred peppers) and spinach and blue cheese.  The salads were equivalent to 2 generous salad portions at another place, but it was nice to be able to try all three.  They were simple, but tasty.  PLUS we got calamari.  I don’t eat it (due to a scarring high school science teacher), but my friend said the batter was delicate and light albeit a little greasy.  She still went to town on them.

three salads

For the second course, we tried all three pasta dishes on the menu that night.  Veal lasagna, orechiette with ricotta and linguine with rapini.  This may have been my favourite course and this is despite the fact that I am currently enrolled in a 6 week pasta cooking class.  These also all came on one plate all in a tomato sauce.  The lasagna was so tender (the star for sure), but we also kept working our way around the plate.  They served it with a jalapeno oil that added some zing, which was a bonus, but not required.  I took home some pasta and enjoyed a full other meal from this and some asparagus we got with our main.

Pasta and more pasta

For our third and final course, we were both able to select a main course.  I went with a beautifully braised lamb shank with peas.  My friend went with eggplant parmesan.  By this point we were stuffed, but it didn’t matter.  I would highly recommend the lamb – it was super tender, had great flavour and the peas were mushy, but it’s not exactly pea season.  We also got two sides – a bitter green salad and grilled asparagus.  Other mains I would like to try: veal meatballs stuffed with mozzarella (two covered in tomato sauce about the size of tennis balls) and the osso bucco.

Lamb and out of season peas

For a quick recap – $29 each, we shared: 3 salads, calamari, 3 pastas, 2 mains, 2 sides.  These are NOT small portions.  This is the deal of the century.  I wanted to have the flourless chocolate dessert, but just couldn’t eat anymore.

I look forward to returning again and again.

Best: Veal lasagna – just the way you expect grandma to make it, except grandma’s is never that good

Not the best: bitter green salad – it was a simple salad and not to my taste, but I know a few people who would love it

PS. After writing this post, Jess and I started talking about it.  She’s obsessed.  It’s now going onto The List.

http://www.sevennumbers.com/

516 Eglinton Ave West (between Avenue and Spadina)