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What nicer time of year to make a journey to Niagara-on-the-Lake. The wineries are busy crushing their new harvest and, of course, there's the Shaw Festival. But the newest production in town is Escabèche; the setting is a restaurant, the costumes are kitchen whites, and the backstage is stainless.
And Escabèche is not just any charming country-road restaurant. It's the main dining room in Si Wai Lai's recently renovated Prince of Wales Hotel, with a traditional, but glitzy decor, billed as "the essence of Victorian charm." Buckets of money were spent on everything from tassels and tapestries to stone floors and arches that give it a chateau-like feel. The staff is attired to a tittle from waiter and sommelier to bus boy. Pomp is aplenty as mains roll out under huge silver domes then lifted in unison. Tables are laden with silver-plated salt and pepper grinders most often found in the five-star French restaurants of yesteryear.
Upon arrival you're treated like royalty. The lovely and totally reconstructed hotel is replete with red-coated footmen. The lobby's restaurant doors are festooned with a large brass fixture of a chef holding a pot and a chicken. Over-the-top flamboyance at every turn -- so sit back and enjoy, if you can afford it.
An elegantly outfitted maitre d' escorts us to a premium people-watching, window-side table for two, announcing our servers' names. It's 9:15 p.m. on a Saturday night (couldn't get a table earlier) and the place is still abuzz. And lucky for us, Chef Lee Parsons is in the house.
An amuse-gueule appears: a tender tiny slice of freshly seared tuna perched on a fennel-red pepper vinaigrette salad is very tasty. Of course, it's free, which helps soften the blow when you see the price of the appetizers -- not for the frugal or faint-hearted. The cheapest item is $12, a salad of arugula and watercress with roasted tomato in a black olive vinaigrette. We start with two soups -- both $14. The theatricality is worth the price alone. Two white bowls come filled with the dry ingredients: autumn shoots and poached quail eggs, an absolute highlight. Then a caramel-coloured, rich and creamy, but not too heavy veloute of new-season chanterelles mushroom soup is ladled in from a silver terrine. Top marks.
The second soup is no slouch, either. The chilled essence of pressed tomato with goat cheese ravioli is served in a yellow-tinted elixir. The clear broth is surprisingly flavourful with a natural viscous quality all its own. The waiter informs that it takes 14 hours for the colour to settle in. Its visual component is further augmented with small flat squares of red and yellow tomato and black eggplant. Bravo! The pungent, cold yet elegantly sweet flavours prove to be extremely inviting.
Unfortunately, the seared scallops with an escabeche of summer vegetables in a coriander cream ($18) is sold out. The only other hot starter available is a mille-feuille of foie gras and quince with aged balsamic ($22). What a reward. An exquisite presentation consists of thin, slices of gently seared, thankfully, unrunny, fresh Quebec foie on sweet, crisp slices of baked pear/apple flavoured quince. Al dente cubes of the figgy fruit are also strewn about in an aged balsamic -- a perfect marriage of flavours.
The four fish, four meat mains start at $34 for a supreme of salmon with a cucumber beurre blanc. But the breast of Muscovy duck with a garlic shallot purée and black olive jus ($38) is too much to resist. Consisting of two pieces of fairly thick, tender, juicy and flavourful deboned breasts, it is accompanied by a small, rather uninteresting, fondant potato and small chunks of sweet and zippy zucchini squash.
The gamey dark-coloured meat of the roasted grain-fed squab ($42) with a madeira jus is accompanied by a small, creamy and tongue-teasing boudin blanc, a white sausage of foie gras and chicken. Alongside, a fricassee of new-season chanterelles and thin green beans. The bird is slightly smoky, with an almost bacon-driven taste that is a dab distracting. Small qualms aside, it's a fine effort.
A magnificent cheese tray features more than 24 ripe unpasturized cheeses ($19 per person). Marc Bouvet, who seems to know every cheese by name, strolls out the trolley. There are also six desserts ($12 each). We share a fine large oven-warmed apple tart. The buttery crust is pure pastry perfection. It is presented with cinnamon ice cream and a creamy cardamom sauce. This dessert is worth a repeat.
Of course, there is the fine extensive wine list with stratospheric mark-ups. To be fair, there are 23 table wines available by the glass, including a 1998 Henry of Pelham Chardonnay Reserve ($7.95) and a 1998 Inniskillin Pinot Noir ($7.50). Of the 11 dessert wines sold by the ounce, one stands out as a perfect foie gras accompaniment -- a sumptuous 1996 Chateau d'Armajan des Ormes Sauternes. But, it costs a stunning $8.80, more than four times the LCBO price per ounce.
Without a doubt, the artful hand of young English chef Lee Parsons is more than merely capable. But are the extravagant prices good value? Well, the soups and appetizers are nothing short of outstanding. Here, top-notch ingredients are the norm. My only reservation is that service is a tad haphazard. An adjoining table of two, for instance, is charged for a salad that never arrives. Although it's adjusted immediately, that kind of faux pas shouldn't be happening here -- not at these prices.
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