Canoe – Our spectacular dinner in Toronto!

For our last dinner in Toronto, we decided to go somewhere spectacular.  So we did some research and Canoe was recommended by several sources (including dubba dubba).  Canoe features ingredients that are fresh, in-season, and Canadian. Canoe is located on the 54th floor of the TD building in downtown Toronto.  The view is amazing.

Here are some pictures of the view:

We enjoyed the view with a few cocktails.  Mommy and Papa had wine.  Karsen had a cranberry-apple juice cocktail.  Anya had the most delicious orange-pumpkin-apple juice cocktail.  For those of you who are worried, our drinks did not have alcohol in them.  Here is a picture of our drinks:

Our drinks were DELICIOUS!!  They also brought us bread and butter.  And of course – it was not ordinary bread and butter.  It was a delicious chickpea-butter (it tasted like tasty fancy hummus).  Here is a picture of the bread and butter:

Now most places with a great view (like the place we ate at when we saw Niagara Falls) have mediocre food.  But we were delighted with the food and the offerings at Canoe.  Here is a picture of the Menu:

There is a prix-fixe menu but everyone at the table has to agree to it.  And it’s hard to get all of us to agree to anything.  So we decided to try a lot of appetizers and have our own dishes.

For our appetizers, we had foie gras, oysters, and a sheep’s milk mousse.  All of the ingredients were Canadian (that’s right the ducks/geese for the foie gras are Canadian).  Here are pictures of our appetizers:

The foie gras was AMAZING!!!  And it came with the most wonderful fruit and peanut sauce and brioche.  Our server, Sarah, describes it as the best peanut butter and jelly sandwich!  Here is a picture of Sarah:

The oysters were so yummy!!  And all of us know from our technique post that we LOVE oysters.  These oysters came with a vinegar and shallot sauce.

The sheep’s milk mousse was papa’s favorite.  It came with delicious vegetables.  The mousse was so creamy!! The vegetables crispy and slightly nutty. The combination of flavors was FANTASTICALLY AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS!!  ALL of the appetizers were FANTASTICALLY AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS!!!!!

Our server Sarah was great at describing the dishes on the menu and had terrific recommendations.  Anya couldn’t resist ordering the frog legs.  Karsen insisted on ordering the ceviche.  Mommy wanted a scallop dish that she had seen on their website.  It wasn’t on the menu but they made her the dish anyway – scallops with porkbelly and mashed potatoes.  And Papa ordered a white fish called pickerel that came with dandelions.  Here are pictures of Anya’s frog legs:

Anya:  the frog legs tasted crunchy, sweet, and a little bit like french fries.  It was almost like having candy for dinner!

Here is a picture of Karsen’s ceviche:

Karsen:  The ceviche was very good.  The foam on top was like salty seawater.  It made it taste “just right.”  It was lemony-limey.  I would definitely recommend it!

Here are mommy’s scallops:

Mommy says that the scallops were perfectly seared and tasted heavenly with the pork belly.

And papa’s fish:

Papa says the fish was perfectly cooked – very flaky as if it was cooked on a campfire.  We think grownups like the world perfectly because both mommy and papa used that word.

Overall, everyone was very happy with their entrees.  In fact, we were all members of the clean-plate club that night!!

Of course, we had to order dessert.  We ordered two desserts to share.  One is a lemon semi-freddo and the other is a sticky toffee pudding.

Above is the lemon semifreddo.  Semifreddo basically means it’s a little bit like ice-cream (but it’s not gelato).

The sticky toffee and the semi-freddo were both delish!  However, if you are torn between the two, definitely get the sticky toffee. The sticky toffee, was well. . . sticky, and perfectly caramelized!!

And after dessert, Canoe sends guests home with goodies.  Our goodies included biscotti and chocolate-covered orange zest.  We had ours in the airport the next day.  Here is a picture of our presents – there was one for each of us:

Our wonderful server Sarah arranged for us to have a tour of the kitchen.  Apparently, the kitchen staff was impressed with a 10 year-old (Anya) eating frog legs!!  We were greeted by the manager (Mr. Rob Kent)  and the Chef de Cuisine, John Horne.  Here is a picture of us with the manager:

Our visit to the kitchen was tremendous. Here is a picture of the functions, the people working there, and food they were making as well:

Above is a picture of perfectly (that’s the grown-up word that mommy and papa like) non-greasy fried squash.  We believe that this was on our sheep’s milk mousse appetizer.

Next is a beautiful reduction sauce that was being made.

The next two pictures are of two different broths that Chef John Horne was making.  They smelled delicious!!  He had been cooking it for many many hours!!  We were full from our meal but still. . . .the smells were making us hungry again!!

Now are some pictures of sous-chefs and other cooks!  Everyone is super busy because the dining room is full of customers!  Interestingly, Chef John told us that the cooktop is made of magnets.  That’s right – it is not like the gas range that we have at home.  Because of fire code, the restaurant had to install a different kind of stove top.  The magnets are immediately hot (like a gas stove top) and the cooking staff are rarely burned!!!

Going from hot to cold, here is a picture of us in the GIANT refrigerator:

This is a picture of Chef Horne answering one of Karsen’s many questions.  Anya thinks that Chef John must be one of the nicest men – he wasn’t even a *little* bit annoyed with Karsen!  He was very patient!

Above is a picture of pastry chef!  You can see the sticky toffee pudding in the foreground. Trust us, it’s delicious!!!!!!  We had to fight over ours!  Next time, we are each getting one to ourselves.

As Anya mentioned, Chef John Horne is one of the nicest men.  At the end of our tour, Chef John Horne presented us with autographed toques (chef hats) and invited us to take a picture with him. Here’s the picture:

As usual, our smiley face rating is on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being AMAZING.  We are not separating this out with two different ratings because ALL OF US AGREE.  This is a five smiley face place:

SMILEY FACE RATING:   🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 and another: 🙂 for the special treatment we received!!!!

Anya added the last smiley face for our special treatment.  So that’s 6 smiley faces!!!!

Here are close-ups of our chef hats – you can see that it was signed by Chef John, the pastry girls, sous chefs, and other staff :

And pictures of us in our chef hats:

Many thanks to all of you at Canoe who made our visit so wonderful!!!  We would like to give special thanks to our server Sarah and Chef John Horne.  This was a terrific way to spend our last evening in Toronto.  Here is link to their restaurant.  We highly recommend it!!  Make a reservation today!!

http://www.oliverbonacini.com/Canoe.aspx