Foods from citizen
Comments
2017 Jun 17
Visited on a Saturday evening and had a delicious experience! Seating is first come first served and we were placed in the harshly lit rear area without a wait at around 7:45. If you want nicer ambience, it may be worth waiting for a table nearer the front.
The light was bad for eating but pretty good for photography. Here's what we had, clockwise from top left in the photo:
Pork Ribs ($18) - a generous slab of tender-chewy ribs slathered with Vietnamese-influenced BBQ sauce and beautifully garnished as you can see.
light it up 2.0 ($14) - they had a special drink menu for negroni week and this was a whimsical and very nice mix of mezcal, Campari, Byrrh, white tequila, and chili liqueur.
Asparagus & Truffled Brioche ($12) - delightful and rich, this was a tasty surprise.
Kit Kat Bar ($9) - pretty good dessert, perfect for sharing. A little too rich to get one plate each, like we did! 😝
Smoked Brisket and Potato Salad ($15) - a real crowd pleaser, this brisket will blow your mind with its tender smokey flavour. The potatoes might have been smokey too. Loved it!
Salt & Pepper Halloumi ($9) - an interesting Chinese style salt & pepper cooking treatment applied to a decidedly non-Chinese food. This worked reasonably well but I would say it was not greater than the sum of its delicious parts.
Quite by chance, I had the good fortune of running the ColorVibe 5k with Chef Mike Frank (of former Mellos Restaurant fame) earlier that same day. Since he takes over the citizen kitchen on Mondays, I asked if he had any recommendations from the Saturday menu. He guided me towards the brisket, halloumi, and ribs. Good call! (The asparagus brioche was a new menu item when we visited and I think it is worthy of recommendation too.)
This was certainly one of our most enjoyable meals of the past year.
The light was bad for eating but pretty good for photography. Here's what we had, clockwise from top left in the photo:
Pork Ribs ($18) - a generous slab of tender-chewy ribs slathered with Vietnamese-influenced BBQ sauce and beautifully garnished as you can see.
light it up 2.0 ($14) - they had a special drink menu for negroni week and this was a whimsical and very nice mix of mezcal, Campari, Byrrh, white tequila, and chili liqueur.
Asparagus & Truffled Brioche ($12) - delightful and rich, this was a tasty surprise.
Kit Kat Bar ($9) - pretty good dessert, perfect for sharing. A little too rich to get one plate each, like we did! 😝
Smoked Brisket and Potato Salad ($15) - a real crowd pleaser, this brisket will blow your mind with its tender smokey flavour. The potatoes might have been smokey too. Loved it!
Salt & Pepper Halloumi ($9) - an interesting Chinese style salt & pepper cooking treatment applied to a decidedly non-Chinese food. This worked reasonably well but I would say it was not greater than the sum of its delicious parts.
Quite by chance, I had the good fortune of running the ColorVibe 5k with Chef Mike Frank (of former Mellos Restaurant fame) earlier that same day. Since he takes over the citizen kitchen on Mondays, I asked if he had any recommendations from the Saturday menu. He guided me towards the brisket, halloumi, and ribs. Good call! (The asparagus brioche was a new menu item when we visited and I think it is worthy of recommendation too.)
This was certainly one of our most enjoyable meals of the past year.
RiceLover
The drinks menu was whimsical with the heading “We only have rosé”, mostly from Ontario. I was initially shocked but the waitress, who knew her wines well, walked me through some of them and I was convinced and delighted by the selection (I tried two).
The food we had were, from top left, clockwise:
Mexican Caesar Salad: baby romaines lettuce with slices of avocado, sprinkles of tortilla chips and baby tomatoes
A variation of bruschetta: tomatoes, jalapeño and goat cheese on a slice of bread
Coconut milk panna cotta with lime juice avocado, crunchy syrupy flakes and almond flakes.
Seared tuna with pineapple 3 ways with cilantro purée
Crispy fried chicken sandwich : so good!
All of it was extremely good, fresh with great combination of flavours.
Definitely one of my favourite new places!