Location:
207 Queens Quay West, Toronto
Cost: $50 for two
www.pearlharbourfront.ca
Unfortunately I don't have any pics of this experience...I did take one shot with my phone but that didn't do any good without a macro setting.
So, we were looking for a place to dine that wasn't pub fare and remembered this Chinese restaurant in the area that we'd never tried.
We were seated at a nice table with a lovely lake view but our server was a tad impatient while taking our order. We really wanted to try the crispy potato nest dishes (either chicken or shrimp) but were told that they weren't anything special, and so we asked him which dishes he recommended. As you know, I like spice, so his suggestions were the chicken in a homemade hot n sour sauce ($15.50) and the Country Style E-Mein (soft) noodles with chicken, shrimp, scallops and veggies ($16.50). This sounded good to us and we also wanted the chicken won ton soup ($5.25). We almost got the grouper as well but our server said it would be a lot of food.
At this point, with the nice view (what you're really paying for) and the fancy dishes on the menu (and fancy prices!) we were really expecting something...fancy.
[And maybe there's something that we missed out on here but we did ask about the best items on the menu, so it should have been great.]
So, the soup was pretty good (although the mushrooms tasted canned) but then, I found a stone in my soup. When we (discreetly) told our server about it he said we should have told him before eating the soup. I guess he's right, if only stones floated! Too bad I had bitten into it on my last spoonful which scooped it from the bottom of the bowl! He was not happy with us! But nor were we.
I must say the noodles were really tasty although they were also really greasy (ring-around-the-mouth-grease) and the chicken dish we got lacked flavour (supposedly the best chicken dish on the menu). We used up all the hot sauce in our little serving dish.
They did take the soup off of our bill so that was nice I suppose, but otherwise I didn't think it was worth it for greasy chinese food. The portions weren't that significant either, but maybe that was the point. Certainly a disappointment for dinner, although not sure how well it fares for its dim sum lunches, which I've read is good.
