Sara K.
Yelp
What a phenomenally cool new place for Grafton. Came in for restaurant week dinner, and was greeted by a warm (literally people it's cold out!) foyer and beautifully textured dining room (the wood, the metal, the glass). Looks like they have a private room (ok it's a huge extra dining room) and the place is half bar, half dining room.
It's a Tuesday night, so it was quiet (REALLY quiet) so to be honest we were confused why it took "so long" for dinner, but then again our three-course meal was done in an hr still so no actual complaints.
My one thing is I wish there was a happy hr menu, but maybe in "Reunion Part II".
So, our waitress brought us a milk jug of water- always my preference (especially when given small glasses) - so I can refill my own water.
We started restaurant week with their big pretzel, which was super hot, and big - salad plate size! It came with a sticky spicy mustard, I think I would have preferred a cheese sauce, but my date liked it, so I ate just the pretzel - *shrug*. It was super chewy in a not good not bad way, but again, the date loved it.
We got the mushroom (farro) risotto entree, which had a lot of nuanced flavors, sunflower seeds for crunch on top of the al dente farro. The chunks of butternut neeeed to be broken up, but the bits that had melted into the farro were lovely (so, I just helped the other pieces. The shiitakes were the best part.
My other "entree" was the mussels and frites appetizer- and BOY was that a surprisingly yummy dish!!!! Lots of mussels, tender and perfectly cooked and seasoned fries, with a beer rather than wine garlic sauce, and garlic aioli. I didn't even know until right now that the yummy sauce was beer not wine based! Now that's a dish that also had a lot going on! The sauce was thin enough to scoop into mussels shells to drink, but thick enough to coat fries and some mussels, and again- the flavor. Totally nailed it. I'll definitely order this again!
Last but not least was the black and white cake, which had shaved white chocolate, and white chocolate mousse which were the highlights... cake was a little dry for my taste... likely, it would have been saved by the vanilla ice cream that was missing from the plate
****wompppppp wommppppp****
I'm really sad that was left off the plate :'(
In general, I was a little turned off from this place by the higher priced entrees (most are upper $20s) and lack of "non-bar" type apps (Id rather a few greener / non salad options) and I never go for bacon anything (yes I know the rest of you do) but after restaurant week I think I'll have to comeback and try that monkfish dish after all....
...and that veggie poutine which has been calling my name for weeks...
I'll be back for that reunion....