Summerlicious - The Chefs' House

Full disclosure. Every Summerlicious (and Winterlicious) I begin making preliminary picks once the menus are posted and I whittle down my options based on a number of factors until I come up with my final list. And for whatever reason, The Chefs' House always manages to get cut right before the final round. So this year I said "NO MORE!" and I bumped it to the final round immediately. It was time. This was happening.

And today it happened! But before I get into the yummy details, a little background about the restaurant. The Chefs' House is student-staffed by a number of related programs at George Brown College. Think of it as a teaching hospital but in restaurant form. At The Chefs' House students get practical industry experience and patrons act as willing test subjects. I found the concept of the restaurant quite intriguing*.

The first thing I noticed when my husband and I walked into the restaurant was that it was teeming with staff. We arrived at noon and the lunch rush hadn't quite got underway so the staff was conspicuously present on the floor, eagerly awaiting their tasks. Attentive doesn't even begin to describe the level of service. The second thing I noticed were the television monitors on the walls of the restaurant which were screening what was happening in the kitchen while food was being prepared. A cool idea but maybe a little unnecessary since the kitchen was in full view from pretty much every seat in the dining room.

After munching on some deliciously fresh focaccia our appetizers arrived. I had the tomato and mixed bean salad with goat cheese and it was so colourful and lovely on the plate I almost didn't want to destroy it. But destroy it I did and it was glorious. For my main I chose the chicken tikka, served with basmati rice and carrot chutney. It was very good but there was a section of the chicken that was teetering close to being undercooked (eep). I cut around it and all was well in the land. Fortunately my dessert got me back on the winning track. I had the ginger scented peach crumble with lemon Chantilly. Heaven.

(*for more information about The Chefs' House check out their website)

The colours! The colours! The goat cheese! The goat cheese!

There's a lot going on in the bowl. More cilantro please!

I swear it didn't look like a crime scene on the plate but here... lil' bit. I blame the photographer.