Christmas Dinner at Ici Bistro

If you travel on Air Canada a lot, you might have read about Canada's Best New Restaurants of 2011 in their November issue.  Ici Bistro was number 5 on their list.  This little 24-seat restaurant reminded me very much of the restaurants in Montreal and the quality of the food was comparable as well.  I think we enjoyed pretty much everything about this restaurant including food and service.  The only thing one could've complained about might be the fact that the restaurant is so small that some tables were located too close to the door and the cold air kept coming in - at least they had some heavy curtains covering the doorway.

 

The good thing about the menu here is that you can order each dish as an appetizer or a main course.  We decided to order a bunch of appetizer size dishes and share amongst the two of us.  They started us off with an amuse-bouche of fried crab cakes.

Then we had the steak tartar which with some taters that were crispy on the outside and buttery smooth on the inside.

The lobster bisque was nice a rich with a fried shrimp in a cappuccino cup since we were sharing.

Next we had the jalousie of snails which was done in a creamy sauce that went really well with the piece of puff pastry.

The duck magret was very tender with a hint of orange and Grand Marnier.

The rack of lamb was so juicy and tender as well and the sauce made with morel mushrooms made the biggest difference.  I love wild mushroom ragout.

We had to wait a bit for our Grand Marnier souffle but the server gave us two glasses of dessert wine for free since we had to wait, not to mention they also gave 2hung a free top up on his wine since he spilled it all over the table...tsk, tsk...

 

I'm so happy that we enjoyed our Christmas dinner at Ici Bistro, and I'm definitely going to visit their bakery Le Matin in the Leslieville area.