Winterlicious Winterlicious 2013: Culinary Events, Prix-Fixe Menus & More at Toronto's Culinary Festival - Jan 25-Feb 7 Winterlicious Festival 2013, GTA
get this dealHungry, Toronto? Starting January 25 you can wine and dine yourselves for less during Winterlicious 2013, Toronto's biggest winter culinary celebration!
This American Express-sponsored event offers diners the opportunity to enjoy prix-fixe menus at 191 of Toronto's best restaurants from January 25-February 7. The prix fixe breaks down like this: $15 lunch and/or $25 dinner, $20 lunch and/or $35 dinner, $25 lunch and/or $45 dinner. This includes your starter, entree, and dessert -- beverages, taxes, and tips are extra.
This year, participating restaurants include: Zucca Trattoria, Benihana, Canoe, Grace, North 44, Mistura and many more. The festival also offers culinary events, beverage pairings, and more. For more information, visit Toronto.ca.
Showing 40 Most Recent Comments
View allSoup, salad and salt cod gratin were all great appetizers. Chicken, seafood pot pie as entrees were good as well. Although chicken on top of mashed potatoes was better value. Choc lava cake and
Pumpkin cheesecake very very tasty. Portions were small but we were satisfied after 3 courses.
Going to the observation deck with the glass floor after lunch was fun.
Lunch had great view of island airport. So overall very good value.
Quince and jump next week.
A very disappointing experience..Looking back not sure why we chose to go there.. I guess we wanted to try something new...I also read the recent google reviews online and it looked positive.....(but maybe it was just for lunch)... I did asked to sit downstairs and even requested a rose at our table and they actually gave it to us... there's a divided section separated by a wall of roses at the front of the restaurant... Not sure if that was for regular dining patrons only.. Wish we could have sat in that section instead as it looked nice and also they had round tables with white table cover...
Rosewater had a lot of stars visiting their restaurant for TIFF in the past but not since 2005..
Food was just average.. portions were decent but the food didn't taste great.. The fish we had was even smaller than the fish dish we had at another restaurant for lunch! The Asian ratatouille that came with the fish was so awful. The chicken looked quite dry and the lamb shank needed some sauce.... The breads given were not fresh...(more like half a day's old)
The scallops appetizer was likely the best dish of the night but it only had two scallops..and the dish looked funny with a chip in the middle of the dish (talk about degrading the presentation of the dish).. The duck prosciutto appetizer was too salty.....I really think Rosewater need to work on the presentation of their dishes & drinks...even the slice of banana that came with the Martini drink still had the skin on?!?! YUCK!
Desserts was terribly disappointing..... nothing special..
In regards to service, our waitress was hardly serving us.. even the guys who brought us the bread and the dishes gave us so much better service than she did.... Our waitress didn't even bother checking up on us on whether everything was ok... till we were almost finished.. She was too busy buttering the table next to us to work on her tip. Only once DID she served us water without us asking for it, and that was at the end when we asked for our bill! Also, the funny thing is when I asked her for the bill, she pretty much took the salt shaker off our table immediately... not sure if she thought we were going to steal it!
As the night got busier, the dishes took longer to come out for many tables... thank god we were there early...even heard a table complained when their food was finally brought out. felt sorry for the other tables who had to wait so long for dishes that were nothing special..
For the same price, I suggest to stick with well known restaurants such as Jump or Annona where you are guaranteed for a fabulous meal and fantastic service.....or for a little more, stick with Bymark or North 44....
Service was terribly slow - was given a "2 hour sitting limit" when we were being seated - funny thing is we probably waited 1.5 hours for food to come. Portions were also very small - we all went for popeye's afterwards and had 2 pieces chicken each! Food was OK but definitely not worth the wait.
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Seared mackerel, yuzu, cured cucumber, Chili, hoisin mayo
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Hanger steak, frites, Demi glacé
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Seared scallops, roasted squash, corn polenta, salsa verde
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Beaver tail, strawberries, butterscotch, whipped cream
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Chocolate mousse, peanut butter, marshmallow snow
If you're attended with friends I suggest you each order different side dishes, because we all ordered mushrooms and lets just say there were 4 bowls of shrooms XD
Had the after coffee which wasn't as good as Toula's summerlicious coffee. But still a good experience.
Thinking of going to another winterlicious resto~
the delicious sin cake:
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Liking The Chefs House and Cafe la Gaffe.
There was 8 of us and overall it was a good experience. Wouldn't go out of my way to come here though. More about that later...
Our server Michelle was excellent, she regularly checked on us, kept our waters filled and provided small things here and there that we asked for such as horseradish with our beef and lamb.
One of the girls in our group, her risotto with her sea bass came out undercooked, and she asked for it to be replaced with mashed potatoes instead. They let her keep the risotto and brought out a plate of fresh mashed potatoes garnished with some asparagus.
Food arrived pretty quickly, though that's easy as they were really busy and packed so I would imagine the kitchen was working at full capacity and churning out food really fast.
Everyone enjoyed their meal, no major complaints. Food was seasoned neutral, not overly salty or land, just right in the middle. Likewise with desserts, which I personally find is more often than not, overly sweet at most restaurants.
We were told of a 2 hours seating limit after half of our party arrived about 40 minutes late, but they did not seem to be strict about this, at least with us. Our reservations were for 7pm. We were all done and ready to leave by 9:30. A 15% gratuities was added to our bill, which is fine as we were a large group.
The reasons why I would not go out of my way to go here is mostly because of the location.
It's located right next to the lake, right besides the derelict ship restaurant Captain John's. This means there's zero street parking, only public lots which jack up the price if there's an event at the ACC nearby. There was a Raptors game and lowest price for parking nearby was $25. One of our friend found a lot for $12, but it was further away.
Anyway, some of us opted for valet parking for $15 instead at the hotel, which the restaurant is attached to on the 38th floor. The ramp going up to the front door was crowded and crammed with taxis and people unloading into the hotel. This is is expected of a busy downtown hotel on weekend evneing, but it slowed us down for about 10 minutes. One of our friends was worried his car would get scratched leaving it with the valet as it's relatively brand new, but nothing happened later on when he got his car.
Restaurant offers a great view all around though, even better if you have a window seat. 38th floor is a better view of the downtown core than Canoe's 54th floor as you're higher up and have to look down, whereas at the 38th floor, everything is eye level.
I suppose your experience at Toula may vary, as there are more negative reviews than there are positive. Just like mine was.
Overall a pleasant experience - the pork belly & scallops app was the weakest dish. The salmon and duck confit were very nice.
Amouse bouche - fried oyster on top of tuna loin and nori
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bread with truffled cauliflower puree (very nice!) and whipped butter with sea salt.
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pork belly & scallops - scallops were gritty. Pork belly was dry and too salty.
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duck confit - very good and unorthodox!
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short ribs - good flavours and decent amount of meat.
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salmon - very good smoke flavours
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apple and maple tart with honey gelato. The gelato is to die for!
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sorbet (mango, strawberry, blood orange) - mango taste like canned mango juice, but blood orange is amazing.
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Thanks!
So, I went to Splendido on the weekend. I really wanted to like it.... I had been previously and loved my meal/service/etc. However, the execution on 'licious was not that smooth. I wouldn't recommend spending $45 on the meal. If you want to go, go for a normal meal during a non-licious time. The Duck Confit was so salty and it wasn't a "leg" as described online but a bunch of meat packed into a square then fried on all sides. That and a few garnishes was all that we on the plate. No side. I am a big fan of duck confit so the main was a disappointment. It is their first time participating and such a shame as a result.... oh well.. Really, if you have a reservation there I would consider cancelling.. I would if I could in retrospect.
The appetizer was simply burst of flavours and the bread... ahhhh ~
They even lower the bottle wine prices.. I said definitely worth it if you haven't been there before for an experience...
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do much hate for Fred's not here. Went there last time and had a blast. Good food, good atmosphere, and they made a mean spicy Caesar
Winter/summerlicious menus are extremely limited and uninteresting. While longt is right, top-notch restaurants still provide quality service and food, they also offer uninspired menus that are overwhelmingly lame.
When I go out to eat, I go out to enjoy something I typically wouldn't prepare at home. The licious menus fail in this respect. As someone else mentioned, ultimately the best the reduced price offers is a free dessert (or even less) and that to me isn't worth the trade off in menu choice.
also, their "famous" baked lobster soup tasted like canned soup. It was so spicy and salty that you couldn't taste any lobster/crab.
our server was in a grumpy mood too. will NEVER go back. I noticed the manager was Chinese. Maybe it's chinese owned?
*If you really have to go, get the seafood paella. huge portions.