By this time in the trip we were honestly starting to get a little tired of all the eating. Which is VERY shocking for my family of food junkies. I don't know if we even went to Captain Cook's for breakfast on Thursday, I don't have any recept for it. It's more than possible that we decided to skip breakfast, knowing that we had an early lunch scheduled at LC.
We arrived at LC in time for the opening ceremony, and we are very glad we did! Watching the servers sing Oh Canada was very moving. We love the song, and we thought they did an excellent job. If you have an opportunity to watch this, don't miss it!
We were shortly led to a 4-top table that was quite possibly the best in the house. It was under an arch and free-standing, not along benches like many of the tables in this restaurant. We had plenty of room to move our elbows and talk to each other without feeling like we were part of another party or two. We rather liked the atmosphere in this place, although it is often cited as a reason NOT to enjoy Le Cellier. It is dark and cool and designed to be like a wine cellar. Again, we seemed to luck out on our table assignment, we might have felt differently if we had been seated on top of other families.
Our server was Jill and she was fabulous. She talked to us for quite a while about Canada, which was very enjoyable. Our water glasses were always replenished and she stopped by many times to make sure everything was OK.
You want to know about the food, right?
Each kid started off with a Red Maple, which I blieve is their name for the raspberry smoothie:
Very sweet and delicious, and also pretty filling. Just what we needed, another filling drink pre-meal!
I ordered a Niagara Refresher, which I think was primarily mango:
It must have been mango, or I wouldn't have ordered it.
Aladdin had a diet coke, of which I have no photo. We also each had an adult beverage with our entrees, I went with a Brassfield Pinot Noir and Aladdin had a Moosehead Ale.
Here is a blurry picture of the bread basket:
I'm not so sure what Jill was thinking, bringing a basket with only 3 pretzel rolls to a table with 4 people, but let's just say that this gaff was quickly rectified and sufficiently atoned for throughout the meal!
OK, this pretzel bread is truly divine, if you happen to like pretzels, which we all do. And we had THOUGHT the bread at Biergarten was delicious, but this put that to shame! Honestly it was so, so yummy.
Belle and Hercules each started with a large portion of the Cheddar Cheese Soup:
It was a HUGE and filling serving! It says "bowl" on our receipt; I think they were allowed to choose between cup and bowl as their app on the DP.
And Aladdin and I split the Trio Appetizer for Two:
This had a Tomato Salad, Duck Confit Crepe (hidden under that pile of lettuce) and a shot of soup each. The salad was very refreshing but nothing particularly special, the duck confit crepe was disappointly lacking in duck, and sadly underneath that lettuce was a dry, almost empty crepe. The soup was delicious!! We all absolutely adored the soup and we used our preztel bread to ensure that not even one drop was left in any bowl! I had tasted this woup several years ago, and for some reason I thought it was even better this time. So, so good.
For our main course, Aladdin and I both ordered the Mushroom Filet:
Absolutely delicious! Cooked to the perfect medium-rare, cut with a butter knife, perfectly seasoned. The risotto was also well seasoned (not too salty), creamy, and cooked to a nice al dente (not crunchy). I loved this dish! I had had it many years ago and loved it just as much this time! It is seriously one of my favorite dishes in the world! Aladdin enjoyed it, but wasn't as impressed as I was.
Hercules was dreaming of this burger for months:
It was served with delicious melted cheddar cheese and nice crispy bacon. Sadly, the burger was overcooked. I tried to convince him to send it back, but he insisted upon keeping it. He said "an animal died to put this meat on my plate, I'm not letting it end up in the garbage." It didn't live up to his expectations. The fries were good, well-done like he likes them.
Belle went with the Gnocchi:
She loved it, and said it might have been her favorite pasta dish of the week, even though it was the least "fancy."
We also ordered 2 side dishes of Poutine:
We asked Jill if one order would be enough for all of us to have a small taste and she said "no." Really? Wow, there was WAY too much of this, and we didn't care for it too much, and we were filling up from everything else, so we didn't even finish 1 order, much less 2. The cheese and gravy were only on the top, and the entire bottom was just plain french fries. We couldn't really taste the cheese...either there wasn't enough or it couldn't stand up to the gravy, or both. It wasn't what we expected. I hear the "signature" version is better and I hope that is true. We paid for these OOP.
For dessert, Aladdin went with the Seasonal Sorbets:
I think there was a lychee and a coconut? I can't remember the other, maybe pineapple. He enjoyed this fine and found it a refreshing break from the sweet/filling desserts we'd been having.
Hercules ordered the Maple Creme Brulee:
He enjoyed this. He was kind of in a bad mood at this point from the overcooked burger and the disappointing poutine and being full anyway from the smoothie, the pretzel bread and the soup. He didn't need dessert and probably would have enjoyed this more under different circumstances. I had a taste and it was very good, though maybe served a little colder than we enjoy our creme brulee. The brulee crust was perfect, and it had a nice maple flavor, but not overly sweet.
Belle went with the no sugar added Lemon Poppy Cake:
She declared this "delicious!"
I had the Canadian Chocolate Bar:
Sorry to say, I didn't like this at all. That chocolate thing tasted and felt very stale to me, and the other flavors were very meh.
Our OOP expense for this lunch came to $71.07, which included a $41 tip, and 2 orders of poutine, a glass of wine and a beer and the taxes on those items.
This is another one that gives us difficulty with rating. Some of the items were stellar, such as the pretzel bread, the cheese soup, the mushroom filet (though Aladdin wasn't blow away by that) and the gnocchi. Unfortunately, the "misses" were big ones, including the "duck" crepe that barely contained any duck, the disappointing poutine for which we paid, the overcooked burger (they're supposed to know how to cook burgers at a steakhouse) and my gross dessert.
Overall, we have decided to rate Le Cellier with a:
3/5! I have to add here that Belle would rate this place at least a 4, as she loved her meal from end to end, and I would easily give it a 5 for the bread, soup, and filet alone. I happily would return for those items, but probably not for 2 TS credits/person. But there were too many not-so-great items to give the place a higher rating...in this family's opinion.
Please stay tuned...dinner at 'Ohana coming up!
