AND COMPANY RESTO BAR

295 Enfield Place, Mississauga On., (905) 808-2112, Wed. 6:00 pm to 2:00 am, Thurs. 6:00 pm to 12:00 am, Fri. and Sat. 6:00 pm to 2:00 am, closed Sun. Mon. Tues.

Located in Mississauga, close to Square One shopping plaza is a vibrant restaurant and nightlife venue called And Company Resto and Bar. 

It is unique in the fact that there is a lovely comfortable restaurant, a sleek bar with a couple of televisions for chilling, a lounge area that includes a dance floor with comfy couches, grand piano and a DJ station. It even has a large rooftop patio for those long summer evenings!

After being seated by the friendly and smiling girls at the door we began to review their new menu. Their menu was entirely designed and executed by their new Executive Chef Ron Stratton.  He came with over 20 years of experience working in a variety of fine dining restaurants all over Canada.  The menu focuses on "fine familiar" cuisine, which basically takes conventional dishes and adds imaginative touches to their ingredients and presentation.

We selected a nice California Zinfandel that was moderately priced and very nice.

My wife chose for her appetizer the Crispy Thai Calamari with a pickled vegetable salad and green curry coconut veloute.  The calamari were delicious and the sauce was very light.

I chose the Jumbo Tempura Shrimp with seasonal vegetable and rice wine vinegar.  The shrimp were very large, the tempura coating was thin and the asparagus was tender.

For her main my wife chose the Salmon Wellington.  This dish consisted of a salmon fillet, enclosed in a light puff pastry, fresh buttered seasonal vegetables and red wine jus.  It was quite dramatic on the plate and the flavours were delightful.

For my main I chose the Chicken Parmigiana.  It consisted of two substantial pieces of Ontario chicken, marinated bocconcini, San Marzano tomato sauce with egg pappardelle.

This was a fine example of a familiar dish being elevated with just a couple of different ingredients and presentation.

Our dessert was shared and was quite different in it's presentation and ingredients.  It was called Brownie Banana Split and consisted of a dark chocolate brownie with a banana spring roll, seasoned berry compote, ice cream and sorbet.  It was a great ending to a wonderful dinner.

We found the servers, our waitress Lizzy (who was efficient and took good care of us the entire evening) and management to be very friendly and inviting.  The music was upbeat and current. The management mingled and socialized with patrons and this was very nice to see.  I should point out that we were invited by Basel - their marketing director and our meal was complimentary.  I think from our comments about this venue and the food you will get a good picture of our experience here.  We enjoyed our evening and are looking forward to returning again.

http://www.andcompany.ca/

FAMOSO NEAPOLITAN PIZZERIA (the annex) 

386 Bloor St. W. Toronto, On., (647) 748-2333 Mon. Tue. and Sun. 11:00 to 10:00, Wed. - Sat. 11:00 to 11:00

Five of us decided to try Famoso for dinner on a cold Saturday in March.  It is located in the people friendly annex area of Toronto.  I decided to call for a reservation earlier in the day and I am glad I did because this place gets very busy and is very popular in the area.

When we arrived we were greeted right away by friendly people that arranged a large booth for the five of us near the back.

There is a long open kitchen and an imported pizza oven in plain view as you walk through the restaurant.  These ovens cook pizza quickly and perfectly crisp.

We were ushered to our table and the unique ordering process used here was explained by our waitress.  We decided what we wanted for appetizers and mains (pizza) and I took the order to an order counter.  The rest was done by the waitress assigned to our table.  This seemed rather cumbersome, but it worked very well and was very efficient.  We ordered two bottles of reasonably priced valpolicella to get us started.

We began with some unusual but very tasty prosciutto wrapped mozzarella balls that were immersed in a wonderful light tomato sauce, they were accompanied by seasoned flatbread.

We each ordered a half salad (great idea), four of us had the caesar with prosciutto crisps, grana padano and house made caesar dressing.  They were a perfect size and great.  

Katie had the Napoli salad which included field greens, red onions, chick peas and balsamic dressing.  She really enjoyed it.

For our mains (they only serve pizza here) three of us, my wife, Mark and I shared the Capricciosa pizza.  This included italian ham, roasted mushrooms, artichoke hearts, kalamata olives, extra virgin olive oil and pecorino romano.  It had a wonderful combination of flavours and ingredients.  This was a great pizza. It was light, flavourful, not greasy and perfectly cooked.

Katie and Thomas shared the Abruzzo pizza, which included oven-roasted italian sausage, slivered red onions, roasted mushrooms, fennel seeds, smoked mozzarella and pecorino romano.  They both really liked this combination.

All of us really enjoyed our evening at this restaurant, from the friendliness of all of the staff, to the efficiency of our waitress and to the wonderful food here.  We will definitely return and highly recommend this restaurant for its all round experience!!

Well done!!

http://www.famoso.ca/

LA FENICE 4 out of 5
319 King St. W. Toronto, (416) 585-2377, lunch Mon. - Fri. 11:30 am to 2:30 pm, Dinner Mon. - Sat. 5:00 pm to 10:00 pm. - Closed Sunday.

Four of us went to La Fenice for dinner tonight, it was grey cup weekend in Toronto.  The city was pumping and the entertainment district restaurants were full.  We were fortunate to be early enough to get in to La Fenice.  Within half an hour it was totally full.  When we entered we were greeted by the maitre d who took our coats and hung them in a coat room - this prevented the inevitable battle of where to put them once we sat down.  A classy first impression.
  

As we were seated a waiter came around with a platter that had a selection of whole fish that were being featured tonight. He was followed by another waiter with a large platter of solid ribeye that could be cut and grilled to any size 6 oz, 8oz, 10 oz etc.  However, this night we all decided to order from the standard menu, since this was our first time at this restaurant.

waiters filleting grilled fish for patrons

We began with a basket of bread that was rather mediocre and tasteless.  We hoped this wasn't an omen for a mediocre meal.  It turned out that the meal was far better than the bread.

rye type loaf was tasteless without dipping in olive oil

For appetizers we all ordered the same thing the grilled shrimp with la fenice extra virgin olive oil.  They were lightly spiced, gigantic and absolutely delicious ($13) and worth the price.

large grilled shrimp - tasted like lobster

We ordered two bottles of a very tasty Ripasso Wine at a very reasonable price of $38 - it was a smooth and tasty version of Ripasso.

reasonably priced very nice ripasso

Three of us decided to have the veal scaloppine with fresh wild mushrooms as our main.  It was accompanied by a selection of grilled vegetables which blended nicely with the light wine sauce.  The veal was tender and delicious and the sauce was smooth and not over salted. ($22)

veal scaloppine with mushrooms and vegetables

One of us had the fettuccine con funghi freschi (fettuccine with fresh mushrooms).  I had the opportunity to taste it and it was divine.  The pasta was house made and melted in your mouth ($19).

house made fettuccine melted in your mouth

We finished our amazing dinner with great deserts.  Three of us had the raspberry chocolate tartufo.  One of us had zabaglione ( a warm custard flavoured with Marsala and served with berries).  We completed our dinner with a couple of cappuccinos.  All in all a wonderful meal with wonderful company.  We will definitely come back to this restaurant.



http://www.lafenice.ca/