Dolcetto & Co. is a newly opened restaurant in the Old Port. Ever since I read about it from another blog, I have put it in my restaurant wishlist. Little did I know, Mr.Butter checks my wishlist and brought me there on my birthday as a surprise!
Once entered, you will see a big square table that is able to fit about 9 people or more! This seems very typical for authentic Italian restaurant as Italians like to gather in big family and eat together. The decor inside is marine theme.
The concept in Dolcetto is to order a few dishes to share. I think it’s a great concept in order to avoid overfeeding yourself from restaurant’s oversized servings. If you are looking for quantity food, this restaurant is not the place.
They gave us different types of bread. They were good – especially with balsamic vinegar!
The wine. That got me tipsy but sober enough to play laser quest right after dinner.
Now the interesting part. We are given a menu, just a simple paper, where we put a check mark beside the plates we want to order. However, I would say about 50% of the menu was fill with Italian words, so it’s quite inconvenient to have the waitress explain almost most the tapas one by one.
A spicy salami paste. I ordered this because it says “spicy” on the menu. You know me – I love spicy food!! This was good pairing with the bread. Although, I would not say anything spectacular. It basically tastes like pepperoni converted into paste like.
Restaurant Park has been in my restaurant wish list for quite a while. Because it is higher priced restaurant, the chance never came until recently.
I was over excited when Mr.Butter decided to go with me! I read too many good reviews and saw too many pictures.
It was a good choice to make a reservation because the evening we went, the restaurant was full-house. There were people that came in later at about 8 pm, and were refused due to full seating. So please take note, make sure to reserve!
The decor of the restaurant is very simple, emitting the Korean feel (which is totally in accordance since Park , the owner and chef, is korean…).
The menu offers Japanese, Korean and some influence of fusion modern cuisine. Our waiter informed us that the menu changes relative to what the season and market offers. This statement already wants me to re-visit it again just to see what’s new!
It was such a difficult task to choose what to order. Everything sounds so good… Well good thing is, Park offers a tasting menu which has 5 services. This allows us to taste a bit of everything. But, because I was greedy and because we were 2 to eat, we ordered 2 more dishes! Yay moooore things to try!
And…the cast of the spell has started…
Oysters from different places – which I have totally forgotten where…Each time the waiter served a meal, he would explain in great details how the food is cooked and with what ingredients. Very informative!
The oysters were fresh and each was seasoned differently as illustrated on the photo. I had the one on the right, where the caviar added a little flare to the oyster…but I think I am too accustomed to just tabasco and lemon that, i would prefer to eat it with tabasco… Hey, raw oyster is raw oyster! All it needs is to be fresh, and these oysters definitely were fresh!
Ah~ the display of the salad was just so pretty, with little flowers, that were 100% edible! I was totally attracted to this salad as the waiter told me that there were figs in it. This salad has a mushroom (which again I forgot which kind, my guess is portobello) slightly grilled. It also has grapes from Champagne, which added sweetness to the salad. The shrimps, I could care less, they were too tiny and tasteless to bring any value to the salad. But, in general, I really enjoyed the salad because of the great incorporation of the fruits.
And there came the ………SUSHI!!! I think this is the dish i was mostly looking forward to. Why? This dish offers a variety of different salmons and tunas over the world. Each one was explained by the waiter. My favorite one has to the very first on the right (see below).
As you all know, I am a fanatic of sashimi. And the very first on the right was so fresh and smooth. Almost the feeling it would melt – i said almost…it just so tender.
I could just re-order this dish again….and again…and again. Or even eat it for a week without getting tired.
Then, the maki arrived! (this is not part of the tasting menu). The waiter told me that this is the best maki he ever tasted. When I heard that, I was very skeptical and had to try it myself to believe his claim. Well? The maki was definitely very delicious. The best? um, not quite. Not to say this maki wasn’t impressive, but it wasn’t as mind blowing as the waiter would make me to believe so. I would much rather go to Mikado to have my maki…. so, let’s just say, this roll isn’t the one who will make me come back to Park.
And then… O ….M…. G. This dish (not part of the tasting menu) was HUGE. it takes a bit more than half of the table, no exaggeration! It was (okok, i’m horrible, yes yes, I am taking the habit of taking notes…from now on) beef ribs. – i don’t wanna say it’s kobe, but my memory is telling me that it might be kobe. Anywho!
This dish was just amazing. Not only was the portion is more than generous (we got 2 huge ribs), the taste is so savory. It was well marinated and well cooked, that the meat was so tender. And I really loved the sweet potato paste served under the meat. Ah…it’s like perfection.
Then, the scallop was served. There were zucchini and shrimps accompanied as well. The scallop was big and juicy. Scallop tastes best when it’s not over flavored and it is light seared to keep its freshness of the sea. This is exactly what Park did. Well nicely executed. But, nothing overly different or original that I have not tasted from other restaurants.
And our diner ended with this dainty dessert. This dessert is derived from korean cuisine, where (if i am not mistaken) the fruits are squeezed into juice, and then it is put into the refrigerator to allow it become ice, and then shaved into this dessert – basically almost like a sorbet. The fruit that was served this time was pear. Other fruits were added to the dessert, as you could see in the pictures, raspberries, grapes, mandarins, apples…
This dessert was very light, just perfect to soothe a very bloated stomach after having a huge meal.
Overall, I am not disappointed at all! My high expectation of this restaurant was clearly met. The hype is evident. Go to the restaurant and test it yourself, and you’ll be just like me, under the spell of Park.
Zuuchini
Other than my short stay in Cuba, Le Paladar is my first Cuban experience.
Apparently, Le Paladar serves authentic cuban food. I cannot ascertain this, but what I noticed is that the hostess is from Cuba. She was overly friendly and very insisting in teaching us Spanish. The whole restaurant is decorated with Cuba related items. Nothing pretentious.
When I noticed that they serve Canchanchara from their cocktail menu, I got overly excited and was the hostess. She was curious how did I know about the drink. Canchanchara was introduced to me during my stay in Cuba and it was my favorite drink; it’s mixed mostly with rum and honey. Le Paladar delivered the drink quite well as it tasted just like the one I had in Cuba. I highly suggest to order a Canchanchara!! – sadly, i forgot to take a picture of the drink.
We also ordered Mojitos. They were good, just like the typical mojito.
That evening, I felt like eating some nachos…
Just looking at the picture, we can tell that it was a huge mistake. There were barely any salsa. After the first layer of nachos, we didn’t have any more salsa. This was the same for the guacamole.
I had
I really don’t remember the name of the dish. The meat is pork – it was definitely too oily and has too much fats in the meat for me to take in. I really did not enjoy the pork. What i actually enjoyed eating in this plate was the rice! It was so delicious! Even Mr.Butter couldn’t stop digging in my plate to get the rice! On the right side of the plate, we have the fried plantains. I actually liked the fried plantains. It’s a nice twist to fried potatoes.
Mr.Butter had fish, which is nothing spectacular…. it was served with plain white rice and fried plantains.
To finish off the supper, we had flans in the flavor of coconut and caramel. The texture is sort of similar to a creme brule minus the brule part and more thick/solid. It was nice, but nothing impressive that I would want to have it again…
All in all, the service was definitely very nice, but the food was mediocre – or maybe I am just not accustomed to cuban food?
Zuuchini
Many claim La Banquise has the best poutine or xxx place has the best poutine. Well, I claim Benny has the best poutine!
If you have an 1hr45 to spare or looking for a little road trip, drive to Trois-Rivieres RIGHT NOW!
Why? Because Poivre Noir makes Trois-Rivieres a very memorable city to visit…Yes, Poivre Noir had totally sucked me in like a black hole already.
No exaggeration at all.
This restaurant is located at the harbour. Find the perfect timing ( accordingly to the day’s sunset), and you’ll get one fantastic view while sipping your evening away with good wine (…and feeding your tummy away with good food). Not to mention, bring good company with you and the experience will be one hell of a good one.
The service is almost impeccable – blame them for not assigning my seats on those cool looking chairs ( I feel like my experience is not 100% complete without those chairs lol). Joke aside, the waiters are so attentive and very knowledgeable with wine. We were even offered some additional dishes on the courtesy of the chef and also because of the long wait. But honestly, I really didn’t mind that my order came a bit late. I think it’s part of the whole relaxing, no-stress, sip the wine, take everything slowly kind of restaurant. But I really don’t think it’s the norm of the restaurant – as the table beside us did not have such a problem.
This is a small bouchee of a very creamy soup (tomato base). I am to blame that I cannot remember the exact detail of the soup – I am so behind with my restaurant reviews (Yes, I am trying to make it as a habit to take down notes from now on…) But what really matters is that, this soup may be small, but that’s all it needs to have us enjoy and savour every sip. I think I can officially declare that it’s the best tomato soup I ever had.
Oh – almost forgot to mention, this soup is a courtesy of the chef. It may be little in quantity, but definitely plentiful in quality.
We ordered a table d’hote which consisted 3 courses.
Here comes our appetizer, our first course. We each had 6 little ball looking things. We both chose different ones, each “flavor” came in a set of 3. Therefore, a total of 4 “flavors”:
–Boules de neige de chèvre-chaud, pistaches et tomate (Pampille et Barbichette)
–Cubes de Parmesan, tomates soleil au cumin
–Dattes farcies de Chorizo (dates enrobed in bacon which is coated with maple syrup)
–Rillettes de sanglier à la bière ( beer marinated boar stuffed with cheddar cheese)
Yes I have purposely led you to only focus on the last two. I even take the extra miles to translate it in English. Because I just want you to order those. Listen to me and you will not be regretful. I promise you.
Those last 2 are bursting in flavors, especially the dates. The sweetness coming from the dates and the maple syrup and the crispiness coming from the bacon. It’s just harmonic pairing.
The first 2 were nothing amazing…. and sadly….they were both my choice. Just let me have you imagined my little puppy eye scenario when Mr.Butter had me tasted his (which are….the last 2 that i have so highly praised).
And then… we had some bread, which were WARM (why don’t all restaurant make this as a standard?!). Ok, this wasn’t a normal bread. But honestly…I don’t remember which one I chose out of the millions ones shown on the tray. Anyhow, little details, because I don’t remember it being overly special other than it was so cutely shaped and that it was warm. But I like to add that it wasn’t some dry bread.
After waiting for I don’t know how long…hey you don’t see time passing by when you have great conversation going on! The server surprised us with these dainty cocktail like General Tao. It wasn’t the typical General Tao. Not chicken but shrimps! I was awed by their diligence – but really…I’m not a fan of general tao…Good thing is, this is not part of our order, so nothing has affected my opinion.
And yes! This is the star of the evening! Braised pork with gnocchi! The meat was so tender. Some may complain that the portion is in the smaller side – but i think it was just perfect. With the gnocchi, it was very filling. Not to mention, the gnocchi was perfectly cooked as well – just chewy enough. It seems like a basic that all restaurants should know – but sadly it isn’t. I have gone to various restaurants that overdid the gnocchi. A restaurant that cannot cook gnocchi right – or pasta right – is a big NONO restaurant.
So, Poivre Noir is a YES YES restaurant.
And who took this salivating picture? Who other than me?! LOL. But in reality, the picture makes this dish more delicious than it should be. Although displayed tactfully, this dish was nothing compared to the braised pork. It was then Mr.Butter’s turn to have his puppy eyes looking at my dish. 😉
And we finished off with a delicate dessert. At this point, athough I did not eat a lot, I was very full already – probably the fact that we took so long to eat, my tummy had the time to process all the food and send the signal to my brain. The dessert was light, which was exactly what I needed after having a dense in flavor main dish. I think the pairing was excellent – but I do not think the dessert was anything overly special that I had not tasted before…It was white chocolate mousse texture with dark cherry sauce. Although it is made with white chocolate, the level of sweetness was very well-balanced.
Let me add this little detail that made the experience that much more enjoyable. The server actually let us finish our wine before bringing us the desserts. Ok, this may be another basic…but for some reason, I don’t ever remember having service like this.
It’s just nice to know that they ace all the basics of the service if not more – when in reality, not many restaurants are able to.
All in all, I am very pleased with Poivre Noir. It may not be friendly (but not aggressive either) to the wallet, it definitely holds a very special spot and certainly it will suck me right back in whenever I’ll be visiting Trois-Rivieres again.
Zuuchini
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