I have to say, we were already feeling pretty good when we arrived, having prefaced our meal with a visit to a nearby hotel bar, and had a bottle of Chapoutier Côtes du Rhone popped open for us soon after we arrived by one of the two friendly and personable servers we talked to tat evening. If you haven’t tried it, it’s one of those good value-for-money wines (runs about $15) and is easily found on LCBO shelves by the braille on the label.

Once this important exercise was dealt with, Graham and I split a couple of appetizers. One was the terrine, which was actually a chicken and duck pate, which was quite nice. Kind of a solid but smooth cream-cheese texture with a light, smoky flavour. The other was a vodka-soaked salmon, which we also agreed was very successful. Both appetizers came with some hot grainy mustard and toasted french bread. On a tangent, I never thought french bread stood up very well to toasting. It always gets dry and cracker-like; I always prefer it simply heated. But maybe that’s just me.

Kim, Breese and our friend Ilya all got some kind of soup; I’m not sure what it was. We ordered more wine.

For a main, I had the merguez, which Ilya prompted me to get because of the difficulty in finding French-style North African food here. They were three lamb and beef sausages and were outstanding. The flavour was quite spicy, but not merely hot; there was a depth and complexity to it that made me want to savour each bite.

Too bad it was the only great thing on the plate, though. The demi-glace it was advertised as coming in looked and tasted more like a lame, cold gravy. Most of the plate was taken up with thin, tasteless fries that seemed to have come from a freezer bag (mind you, bad fries probably are authentically French, but…). The chopped, grilled, and chilled veggies were not really spectacular either, but they did serve a good purpose in cutting some of the heat from the sausages.

Now, to be fair, I do think I got the loser dish of the table. I had some of Kim’s pan-fried trout, which was very good; light and a rich flavour. Graham also raved about the winey sauce of his Boeuf à la Bourguignonne, which, really, I should have gotten. I can’t remember exactly what Ilya and Breese got, but they were both quite happy.

I know that they were happy with the desserts; Ilya had a lemon tart (sample exchange — Breese: “How’s your lemon tart? Lemony?” Ilya: [excitedly, and taking a bite] “Mmmm!”) and Breese and Kim each had the flourless chocolate cake, which by all reports was well worth it.