As warning to fellow hounds, may be a post with above captioned title to mirror " Best Dish in 2016 " might be of help and fun?!
My candidate:
- Yang's, Richmond Hill: 'Stirred fry Razor clams with XO sauce'.
Overly spicy, tough, chewy and inedible clams with grits and sand on a pool of watery gravy. ( this stirred fry dish should not have any gravy at all - think charbroiled burger with thick gravy poured on top of pattie! )
Today, I just had the worst pasta/meat dish of this year, if not this decade or even century!!
Man! It was just BAD! BAD! BAD!
The dish in question was ' Prosciutto wrapped veal with mixed mushrooms, tomatoes, spinach, spaghetti, Marsala wine sauce ' at 'Del's Enoteca Pizzeria' in Kitchener.
From the photo attached, one could see this totally un-appealing mess of a dish, piled high with over-cooked veal, made worse by being sandwiched between layers of soggy spaghetti and wet mushrooms, rendering the meat even more chewy and less edible!
The sauce was a HUGE pool of alcohol laden 'broth', hastily put together by the chef without boiling off the alcohol in the wine. Was I being served a sauce?..a broth?...or a soup full of booze?
As for the pasta, though the spaghetti was home-made, unfortunately, with the time spend submerging in the 'broth' the result was a piled of over-cooked, sans al-dente noodles, resembling more like a plate of Asian instant soup noodles....but much less tasty!
If this dish is a reflection of the chef's culinary skill and creativity then I am at a lost as to what he was thinking?....may be he was possessed by the devil??
{ The thing is, during our first visit there a few weeks ago, the grilled octopus appetizer we ordered was one of the tastiest western dish I have had in Canada for a while! Even tastier than the grilled octopus at NYC's Michelin 1* Babbo!...hence the incentive for our re-visit }.
????? What happened?!
Charles,
Unfortunately, I'd say you got the "norm" and your previous visit was an exception.
I have never had a really good meal at Del's. Frankly, I'm surprised your octopus on a previous visit was so good. For the most part Charcoal group restos are consistent (Wildcraft, Bauer, Steakhouse, Martini's) though unspectacular, but I have found Del's and Beertown to be disappointing for the most part. Del's duck pizza (sounded interesting) was dry and didn't have enough in the way of toppings, their charcuterie board was just ok...
Next time looking for pasta in KW there is some good pasta at Red House (Lamb Spaghetti) or TWH Social for their Gnocchi (w/ brown butter/sage) my current fave. (side note: TWH has a good octopus salad) Proof Kitchen had a nice scallop pasta dish w/ lemon ricotta but they have recently replaced it with something else.
Or if it's old school "red sauce" Italian your craving... just hit up the Hot table at Vincenzo's for take-out!
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