Friday, February 18, 2011

Far Niente (Winterlicious)

I had dinner with three lovely ladies from Ketchum (@KetchumCanadaPR) last week at Far Niente. Charmaine (@charmainealia), who I've met at HugTO's Cookies & Champaign Party, invited me out for dinner along with her two colleagues, Jennifer (@JeniAnne22) and Katie (@ziervog). We all had a great time chatting about food at first (we are all foodies) but then slowly we branched off to random topics like relationships (or men, to be more specific haha), work, TV shows, movies, celebrity gossip, etc. I had a really good time that night; it was great meeting Jennifer and Katie and reconnecting with Charmaine again. And in all honesty, what is there to complain about? Dinner on a Thursday night with a few girl friends, good conversation, along with a 3-course meal at a nice restaurant and a bottle of wine? Hmmmm....nothing! 


I've been to Far Niente twice for lunch, but never dinner; once for Licious long time ago and once for regular lunch. Far Niente is located in the heart of the financial district (King & Bay). I remember the two times I went for lunch it was really crowded. Evidently, not as crowded that night when we there. One thing to note though - it was super cold that day, like -25C cold, so I'm sure a lot of people went home after work to hibernate!


We were sitting at one of the booths on the side.


Our wine of choice that night: Merlot


Far Niente has pretty dim lighting, so please excuse the quality of the pictures (I do not like to use flash and my hands can only be so steady). 

B.L.T Salad - Creamy blue cheese dressing, puffs, double smoke bacon. This was my favorite course that night. I love how the lettuce doubled as a bowl. As you can probably tell, there was a lot of blue cheese (I was very happy to see this) and with the blue cheese dressing it was perfect for a cheese lover like me. I would've liked a bit more smoked bacon but not a big deal. I love the puffs as well, they had a croissant-like texture to them.


Black Angus Top Sirloin Steak - Vegetable pot pie, sauce provencal. 


Steak was cooked rare, just like how I asked =) The sirloin was thick and tender, grilled lightly on the outside. I liked the sauce too; just enough for the size of the steak. The vegetable pot pie on that other hand was "meh" as there was a lot of pastry but hardly any vegetables. I also thought the pot pie could be hotter in temperature.


Apple Oat Crumble - Milanese vanilla ice cream. Unlike the crumble that I had for lunch at La Marquette the day before, this is a traditional crumble. Katie and I both agree that this apple crumble was lacking because it was not served hot, more like at room temperature. Also, the ice cream was not as cold as it should be either. Is that possible? I don't know. I just felt that the apple crumble lacked that essential hot and cold contrast.


I thought my meal at Far Niente was good, but not great. I guess the two things that made it a bit shy of great was the vegetable pot pie (too much pastry and not much veggies) and the apple crumble (not hot enough). Katie had the wild pacific snapper, and Jennifer and Charmaine both had the crusted mustard glazed chicken (the chicken was huge by the way). They all seemed pretty satisfied with their mains.

To Charmaine, Katie, and Jennifer: I truly hope you all enjoyed dinner as much as I did, and I hope we will all meet again soon, and have Katie (@FoodieKat) join us next time ^_^

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