Summerlicious 2007: Cataplana

Last night was our last venture for this year's Summerlicious. We went to Cataplana with Magda and Patrick. The restaurant cuisine is Portuguese and I chose it because, number one I never had Portuguese, and two I read some very nice reviews about it online. I must say I was deceived. While the meal wasn't a disaster by any means, it was a disappointment (good thing we had excellent company).

Our reservation was at 9pm. We arrived on time, the restaurant was about half-full, the person who showed us to our seats did not even check our reservation confirmation, that's fine, it's not as if they were short on seats. Our table is actually the one in the picture. I had a nice view of the kitchen and bar.

Our waiter... was a bit special... I'd like to nickname him Gestapo. Arrived 2 minutes after we were seated to inquire about our drink choices, we weren't ready... he almost saluted and left.

We decided to order a bottle of rose wine listed on the Summerlicious menu, since this was a very seafood oriented restaurant, and we felt pink wine will complement all of our dishes.

This is my first issue with the place. This restaurant is doing Summerlicious for both lunch and dinner, and wines listed on both menus are the same. A bottle of Aliança Casal Mendes (Rose) at lunch time is $17.00, dinner time $22.00. Weird no???? I ordered it, our waiter brought it with a chill bucket, I tasted it and approved then he poured it for the rest of us, clumsily, angrily, spilling a tad. He didn't seem to like us.

Ok, lets move on to dinner...

No bread basket appeared on our table until we were served our appetizers. I don't know why, maybe it's their thing. Once we got one, it was simple with two different breads (corn bread and something white and fluffy), along with Portuguese olive oil, balsamic vinegar and a little dish of cured black olives. I didn't like the olives, to me they tasted like cardboard. But then again I'm not a fan of black olives to start with, so for all I know they could have been fabulous. The olive oil was delicious and so was the bread, very fresh.

Our appetizer choices were:

Soup of the day Gazpacho
or
Mixed green salad With Balsamic dressing
or
P.E.I. Mussels With basil tomato sauce
or
Grilled Squid with roasted vegetables

Magda and Jason had the squid. It was nice a generous portion, served with grilled portobellos, pineapple and other veggies. Well there was one drawback.. they didn't remove the wings from the squid. Once again maybe it's their thing, but I love squid, order it a lot, and yet it's the first time I saw anyone leave the wings on.
Patrick and I went with mussels. Again generous and tasty, but we were not given a bowl to drop our shells in, or a spoon for the sauce, maybe we were supposed to use the shells, but I just sopped it up with the bread.

For the mains we had an option of:

Pan Seared yellow fin tuna black peppercorn crusted,
Meditteranean relish
or
Grilled fresh Cod fish sweet mash potatoes roasted eggplant
or
Shitake mushroom risotto
or
Linguine,Mussels,Shrimp,Squid,with tomato sauce
or
Prime Rib 10 oz served with mash potatoes and vegetables

Magda had the risotto. Portion was huge... poor girl couldn't finish it. I didn't taste it.. shitake mushrooms aren't my favorite.
Jason had the cod... oi... what a disappointment. The plate presentation looked appealing but the fish itself was kind of gross.. I didn't like the texture of it at all.. it was chewy, and no one bothered to take the bones out, or to inform us that they left them in. The eggplant and broccoli were nice. Jay enjoyed the rapini, I felt the sweet mash had a tad too much cinnamon in it, and I'm not sure why the kitchen also put beans on the plate. The plate was incredibly hot, I touched it pulled my finger very quickly away exclaiming "Aww you son of a bitch, that's hot"... I didn't mean it.. but damn it was hot.
Patrick and I decided to have the linguine. A very close repeat of our appetizer with a bit more seafood variety and pasta. The pasta was a bit bland, could have used a bit more seasoning. The portion was huge, plenty of squid, mussels and shrimp. Once again we were not given a bowl for our shells, or the shrimp tails that were left on.
When we finished with our main course, it took our waiter way too long to clear our plates, seriously I have an internal clock for service, and for the quality restaurant this place represents itself as, this was a faux pas.

Now dessert time:

Molotof
or
Sorbet mix

Jason and Magda had the Molotof which is a Portuguese soft meringue served with caramel sauce. It was extremely fluffy, as Magda described it you put it in your mouth but had nothing to swallow it just disappeared, like eating clouds.
Patrick and I went with the sorbet, mango and black currant served in a ramekin... yeah.. once again not impressed. The sorbet was good made by Gelato Fresco, but not sure who attempted the sad quenelle shapes in the kitchen and failed miserably, should have just stuck with a scooper.

Throughout our dinner our waiter did appear now and then to refill our glasses, but he wasn't very personable, we just couldn't get him to warm up to us.

So in conclusion there were a few good things about this place but overall my impression wasn't favourable. And of course this review is personal and I know seriously biased on my expectations, I won't visit this restaurant again, but don't let that stop you.