Restaurant Review: Smalltalk

Smalltalk, 1580 Bayview Ave.

While Toronto's Summerlicious event seems to be a good way to experience higher-end restaurants for a reasonable price, I worry that at smaller, more neighbourhood-oriented venues, you end up getting a crummy deal and substandard food. Sometimes, your very participation in an event that has brought you to a new restaurant, one that could thereafter become a favourite or a regular haunt, causes the staff to treat you as second-class customers. This is a really dumb business practice.
That being said, when we went to Smalltalk, we had the option to dine either from the regular a la carte menu, or to use the Summerlicious prix-fixe selections. We all went for the Summerlicious deal. I'm not sure if that was the cause of what was to come, but it wasn't good.
Smalltalk looks like a cute, neighbourhood place, and I was excited to try it. Until I noticed that the banquettes were stained and dirty, and the pencil drawings on the walls were amateurish and clearly copied from photographs (I have a thing about bad art in restaurants). It was also Arctic icy inside. Due to rain, sitting outside on the attractive patio was not an option, so I just shivered through dinner.
Plus: Everyone enjoyed their fancy, fruity martinis.
Minus: The promised amuse-bouche arrived after the appetizers. Like a palate cleanser? Um, no...just in the wrong spot. It was a tasty confection of sun-dried tomato, herbs and a creamy cheese mousse, but was rather irrelevant by the time we got it.
Plus: The basket of bread arrived warm and was very delicious. Spiced and herbed olive oil was nice for dipping.
Down to serious business: The appetizers were pretty good. Caramelized onion and goat cheese on salad (although from the description in the menu you never would have known it came on salad) was tasty. The Summerlicious portion size was a great deal smaller than the regular menu size, but smaller was better. It would have been an overwhelming amount of spring mix lettuce otherwise. The spicy Malaysian red lentil soup was robust and flavourful, although the promised accompanying chicken dumplings turned out to be a single cardboard-textured, dried out little bit lurking at the bottom of the bowl. For mains, the Guinness braised short ribs were in a yummy sauce, although the ribs were a little unnecessarily fatty; garlic mashed potatoes are hard to screw up, but the roasted root vegetables seemed like space food--as though they had just been rehydrated before plating. Herbed, seared grouper was dry and overcooked. Accompanying vegetables were cold. As was I.
We were desperately looking for some salvation in desert, but the double lemon tart was too sweet, completely lacking the nice tart-sweet contrast that you crave in a lemon desert, and was on heavy, doughy pastry.
It was a disappointing experience since I'd had high hopes, but unfortunately the misses outweighed the few hits.

rating: * (Wouldn't go back, wouldn't recommend it)