Joey, baby – don’t get crazy

Yesterday (Wednesday) evening Joey Don Mills hosted a media launch party. Located at the Shops of Don Mills (Toronto), this is the first Ontario location of the west coast chain.

In front of the restaurant I’m handed a spoonful of ribs and as soon as I enter the restaurant, a glass of Prosecco. Great idea to welcome the guests with good wine and food. I’m a sucker for Prosecco. Apparently I couldn’t even wait to photograph it before I drank two thirds of it. Or my hands were full. (It’s the season to carry a jacket and sometimes need it, sometimes find it just a cumbersome article to carry.)

Inside food was served via combination of food stations and waitresses walking around with platters. A DJ booth in the corner sat between a Stella Artois display with ice sculpture bar that I couldn’t resist touching and the first food station that I visited. I’m tactile and the cold, smooth ice was irresistible.  After nibbling on some butter chicken on a bed of basmati rice, topped with yogurt and parsley and served with a lentil papadam (not spicy enough but the chicken had great texture) I spot blogger Alexa Clark of CheapEats Restaurant Guides, AlexaClark.com and unsweetened.ca (what, you only have ONE blog?) in a group waiting for a tour of the restaurant lead by Executive Chef Chris Mills. I join. I was pleased to see a number of bloggers among the group and to be among the group.

Chef Chris Mills: Tour guide.

Chef Mills lead us over to the bar to see his state-of-the art Enomatic wine server. Using food nitrogen and computer programming, this system keeps the wine fresh and at the right temperature and pours the perfect amount in each glass. We were also encouraged to try the bellinis, which later resulted in brain freeze, aka “ice cream headache” for me – twice.

Next to the kitchen the expediter was expediting, a flat bread was just out of the oven and some of what I later learned were individually baked apple pies in hand folded puff pastry. Upon eating one later I observed aloud that they visually reminded me of rugelach.

After a quick tour of the main restaurant area we were led upstairs. At the top of the stairs a mural wall opened up like a garage door to reveal what next spring will be the patio.

What restaurant tour is complete without a stop in the restrooms? The men’s room was done in dark tile, mural of a fireman with a hose behind the urinals. Get it? Hose… water… men relieving themselves. Oh, the things that amuse us.

The women’s restroom was white and bright with round sinks that were simple but nice and fresh. In both washrooms, the standard automatic features. It’s not particularly relevant, although bright, spacious washrooms in a restaurant are an added touch.

Down at another food station, the Panang Prawn Curry Bowl is being doled out and garnished with cilantro and peanuts. It’s served over rice with red coconut curry and has a nice kick to it. Later I go back for a second bowl and in the meantime recommend it to others. One friend comments that it’s hard to get such a dish wrong, but I think that there’s always a way to get a dish wrong.

The lobster grilled cheese meets mixed reviews, and people have come to the restaurant with preconceived notions about whether or not they’ll like it. Most seem tentative I like lobster, I like brie, I like cheddar. I looked forward to it. The menu claims that the sandwich contains Atlantic lobster with brie and cheddar. I taste each of the components mildly and perhaps this is because it’s sample sized. Greasy buttery bread. Lobster with its mild seafood taste. Cheese that tastes mildly cheesy and has the stringy texture of cheese. The horseradish bite of the cocktail sauce. None of the components stands out in flavour but I do notice the textures. One blogger friend observes that she didn’t taste lobster. Later I have a second one, no sauce. I taste buttery bread and not much else. It’s not a bad sandwich but needs a flavour inside the sandwich to dominate. Any flavour. With grilled cheese it’s easy for the butter to dominate.

One of the items I was most looking forward to was the ahi tuna taco. Sushi-grade tuna is one of my favourite foods. I’m still not sure what I thought of the fish tacos. The sesame ginger coleslaw on the side of the tacos was nice and the fish had good texture.  The sample was too small to really taste, or maybe my tastebuds were getting fatigued due to a combination of so many different flavours from the variety of foods and flowing free alcohol (not that I drank much – 4 drinks?).

Although they were hard to come by because we were sitting in the back and thus the food being carried around often didn’t make it our way,  Alexa requested a slider from the kitchen and then cut it into pieces to share. My observation: The sliders tasted like McDonald’s burgers to me. Meat cooked to the well done stage and dill pickle. I later got my hands on another one – a full one, which is still small because it’s a slider – and made the same observation. They were quite tasty, though.

I liked the individual apple pies. They came on a spoon with an accompanying spoon of ice cream. I didn’t think to take a spoon of ice cream, fixated as I was on the apple pie. Warm and wonderfully spiced, I could have eaten many.

The atmosphere is cool and relaxed. Multiple video screens line the wall (oddly, what was screening went from a DVD of The Blue Man Group – which still makes me think of Arrested Development – to some female pop group in black dominatrix PVC). I envision people having business lunches there, or after work drinks. There’s free WiFi in the lounge and free WiFi is always good to have – although it is nice to actually be social when you’re having a meal with people (she reminds herself).

The Don Mills location was surprisingly easy to get to, and didn’t take as long as I’d expect. The Don Mills bus provides frequent service and goes to Pape subway station. More on my thoughts on The Shops of Don Mills as a mall in a future post.

Photo gallery: (Related posts below)

Related posts:

• Jess of Sift, Dust and Toss interviews chef Chris Mills.
• Sarah Hood of Toronto Tasting also interviews Chris Mills.
• Sarah’s post-event review.
• Launch party review at Food with Legs. Very different opinions than my own, which is interesting to me. (See, taste is subjective.)
• Launch party review at RadioFreeCanada

…If I missed your blog entry I apologize. I did both a regular Google search and a blog search. Feel free to leave a comment with a link to your blog.