food review: L'Atelier
janetmk is here for the long weekend, and came with papersky, zorinth and me to L'Atelier yesterday evening for my belated birthday dinner. L'Atelier is in a price range we can do for special occasions, and had a review in the Gazette a couple of months back which made it sound our kind of thing, so we've been waiting to do this for some time.

L'Atelier's thing is to do starter-sized portions of interesting things and serve you a recommended three of them, and with three people who are interested in sharing three different things - zorinth was not so inclined - this gets a very interesting variety of stuff. While we were perusing their menu, they brought us half a dozen oysters, three from New Brunswick and three from Nova Scotia, which were deliciously fresh and a good start. The wine list was entirely unfamiliar to me, nor can I remember now exactly what they were, alas, should take more notes next time. The one of which janetmk and I had seven-ounce glasses was a white Burgundy, anyway, and just my thing. The food, at least, I can look up online, there was rather more of it than quite fits in short-term memory.

The first things to arrive were the charcuterie plate - three pieces of wonderful mild sausage, three little squares of creton, and three thick slices of smoked duck breast, all very good - and the rock lobster salad in a sauce that was basically pureed carrot, olive oil and orange juice, which combination was very peculiar and I am still entirely unsure whether or not I actually liked it. However, the tartare of duck, shiitake mushrooms, wild rice and pine nuts, all ground into units about the size of rice grains, was one of the best things I have eaten in my entire life.

Next to arrive was a beautifully light, almost fluffy seared scallop atop a deep-fried raviolus containing black pudding, in a sweet-and-sour maple syrup sauce, two things that were delicious on their own and superlative in combination. Also, not on the menu but available that night, a chunk of grilled monkfish with sweet potato puree and a shredded beetroot sauce, also excellent.

The last four dishes turned up more or less at once. The bison and tuna tataki with strips of mushroom was simple and excellent; the salmon in skin with salad was perfectly good but given the company not very interesting; the lobster and foie gras ravioli in a rabbit and truffle oil sauce was stunning (and there were three of them, which was good for sharing purposes), and the foie gras creme brulee was good, though unlike that in Infidele it did not have truffle oil in, that I could tell, and the flavour was less subtle thereby.

zorinth had another iteration of the charcuterie and Atelier's take on poutine, with suitably upmarket potatoes, cheese, rabbit and barbecue sauce, which looked quite nice.

We then had our choice from a good selection of cheeses; an aged goat's milk cheddar that was surprisingly mild, a mixed goat/sheep/cow cheese, and a lovely creamy Riopelle. There was a dessert option thereafter, and zorinth had brownies, and I opted for the creme brulee trio, which came with three individual spoons; the cremes brulees in question were a so-so pistachio, which is more my reaction to pistachio than to the particular instantiation, a good coffee, and a very nice Grand Marnier.

Overall, one of the best meals I have ever had, coming to a total of almost dead-on C$60 a head, which seems a much better deal thinking of as ST#30.