Dinner at Pangaea

There were two visits. The first was on a Monday night, it was an early reservation but we were there for quite a while. The crowd was kind of mixed, some suits, not many old people, a young couple with the chick in jeans the guy dressed kind of business casual. The second visit was on thursday night, it was also an early reservation but it was during the Winterlicious promotion. Being winterlicious, the crowd can differ from what you might see when winterlicious is not running. One thing i liked second time, in fact the only thing, is that there were a lot of good looking asian chicks in the place. However, we were sitting the back room, so as we walked to the front of the restaurant to leave, there were are incredible number of old people sitting near the front entrance.

The room is big with very high ceilings. Over the heart of the main dining room its metal (steel or zinc) with a sky light. I kind of like the mission chairs, although they might not be to everyone's taste. They kind of dimmed the lights after a while. It might have been for the guy with the chick in the jeans. Didn't have a big impact on me. They might want to invest in some cork flooring the next time they update the place. I don't think the pale laminate flooring really provides the right backdrop to the vibe they want to give off. Something with a darker stain would frame the chairs and rest of the room better.

The first time I went they had a selection of breads to pick from. I took a little whole wheat and baguette. You have the option of spreading butter or some pumpkin butter. I chose the pumpkin better. It tastes like pumpkin. The second time, during Winterlicious, they just brought the bread and a roasted red pepper spread. The spread was ok.

The food.

The first time I went I had the calamari to start and the venison as my main. The calamari there is excellent. I love it. I have it every time I go there. I could eat all night. Even better is dipping bread in the oil that remains at the bottom of the dish. I think that they did cut down on the size of the portion though. I always remember it being a bit on the supersize serving. I can remember some one saying it is was main sized in some review I saw of the place, but this is definitely starter sized now. The venison was done competently and I dipping the venison it the gravy/juice in the dish made it taste even better. I originally wanted the caribou, but this was the substitute. It was fine. I was tempted by bouillabaisse, several people had it. It looked good, no one complained. I remember it coming in a bigger portion, but it still looks like a good choice.

The second time I went I started with with pappardelle and sweetbreads and I had the tuna.
The pappardelle and the sweatbreads was excellent. Sweetbreads is one of my favourite foods. They are so delicious. The tuna was uninspiring. It was supposed to line-caught, they must have gotten a small one. I got a couple of chunks of raw tuna that was seared. It came on a bed of arugula, with a few potatoes. Borrrinnnng. My dad grows arugula in his garden, so i'm used to the taste of the fresh and organic arugula, which has a bit of a spiciness to it (but not in a hot way). The arugula they served was tasteless. I've been to Kultura and they have a arugula and shaved parmesan salad that's quite good, the arugula they use tastes like the stuff my dad grows. I talked to one of the owners (Hanif) about the arugula and he told me they use organic arugula. The confit of potato, I think this means that the potatoes are supposed to be cooked in duck fat. If they were, they must have been running out of duck fat because I didn't think they were rich in the way a duck confit is. This dish was a major disappointment. It was in many ways appalling.


The wines.

The first time we started with a US McManus chardonnay, it was oaky and full-bodied. Quite good. We also had a Zin from Cali. Noone can remember what it was. But it was definitely memorable, you could smell the berries -- so there was no doubt it was a true zinfandel.

The second time we went we started with the McManus . The red was a zinfandel, it was either the '03 Cline Sonoma or the '02 Pedroncelli. I'm 95% sure it was the cline sonoma. This may have been the wine we had the first time there, but again i don't have detailed notes or the bill to check. The McManus was also fine the second time around. I had a problem with the zinfandel. I couldn't smell it, so I think the bottle we got was off. I didn't sample it, so i don't for sure. Part of the problem is that the served the red wine in a white glass (again .. more on this below).

The first time I went I didn't have desert. I was out for lunch. I did try a bit of someone's mocha dacquoise. I was not impressed. The following comment was made about it "its not a dacquoise". I had their chai tea. I've had this before on previous visits and I would recommend trying it, I quite like and I wasn't disappointed this time around. However, on the second time around the bonehead waiter didn't bring me a sieve for the tea (its loose leaf), so it wasn't as good. I didn't have any desert the second time and I didn't bother sampling anyone's.

What I did find to be extremely disappointing here is the service.

The first time I went the waiter was some guy with a french accent, he may not have even been french (more on this in a bit). One person indicated they only wanted a little bit of wine, but he still filled up the glass of wine. What a waste of wine. No real french man would do something like that. When they brough out the food mine did not come with them. The waiter had to come by and check and then send it from the kitchen. Finally, the waiter (the alleged frenchman) brought us white wine glasses for the zin. I was absolutely appalled. They have red wine glasses for a reason, to drink red wine. White wine is for white wine. The other diners were drinking their red wine in red wine glasses. This is inexcusable. The zin was good, but with the right wine glasses it would have been even better. For the price point that this restaurant is charging these things should not be observed.

The second time the service was even worse. This can probably be attributed to the winterlicious promotion making the place a lot busy than normal. Our waiter was some small tall dickhead. If you're running a business you should plan for these things. If you claim to be a high end restaurant then you can't skimp on the service, you have to treat the diner with respect and make his/her dinner experience the centerpiece of the evening.

The food is ok, but the service was real disappointing. In fact, the service is just bad. For this kind of price range you have to invest in the service. This is supposed to be a high-end restaurant.

Total cost for 5 (3 of the cheaper appetizers, 5 mains, 3 deserts, 4 coffees and my chai tea), $540 with the tip for the first visit.

The second visit was in the same price range, but there were 4 orders off the winterlicious menu and three bottles of wine.

You're better off saving your money. If you want to go then go during winterlicious or summerlicious. Their winterlicious and summerlicious menus are quite good (eg., they have sweetbreads on the winterlicious menu) given the price range. The service will be bad, but there will be some hot chicks there for the special menus.

Rating: 0 Bunnies


Notes on the Bunny Rating System:

• 0 or no Bunnies, it's a waste of time; don't go.
• 1 Bunny, the place is worth checking out.
• 2 Bunnies, you should go out of your way to check out the place; the food is really good and the place is cool.
• 3 Bunnies, you absolutely have to go there; the food is exceptional and the place is really cool