Perigee

Perigee, the point at which an object in orbit around the Earth makes its closest approach to the Earth. After 4 months of rescheduling, finally JK, MR and I were there @ Perigee last Saturday. The Perigee here… is the restaurant in the Distillery District in Toronto. Hearing so much about its tasting menu (as well as the dessert tasting menu), we were excited to make a reservation in March, (and eventually got postponed to July).

Around 7:15pm, we arrived at the Distillery District. We parked at the parking lot (i.e. entrance on Parliament Street) that was the closest to the Cannery Building, in which the restaurant locates. The restaurant was on the 2nd floor. We were brought to a table at the Southeast corner, near a window. I liked it because some day light is good for picture-taking, and we could feel the historical environment outside. We were then presented with the cocktail menu. The price range was around 12-17 per drink.

It was getting dark… For the first round, we each got a cocktail. JK got a Afternoon Delight, I got a Pearschulager (if you love cinnamon you would love this), MR got a Sour Mash Martini. (Let me know if I didn’t remember correctly) Since I was the driver of the night, I only had 1 cocktail, and had a few sips of theirs. It’s hard to see the drinks in the picture unless you really pay attention to it. Chatted a bit with the server, we found out that the restaurant have revamped their menu. They used to offer only the tasting menu (with choice of vegan). However, now they took away the “tasting menus” (no more dessert tasting menu), but instead they offer the a la carte, as well as omakase (7-10 dishes) for $135 (if you’d like to have pairing wine, it would cost $235).
To me, omakase is very similar to tasting menu, but the major difference would be that they do not have vegan, which JK would love to try. Also due to lactose-intolerance, we were in a struggle which way to go. MR inquired about the closest convenience store location, and Mike (who seemed to be one of the senior staffs at Perigee) volunteered to get the lactaid for us. It was very nice of Mike to go the extra miles to serve the customers. We really appreciated it.

So we were all set. Bread and butter came first. There were 3 kinds of breads. In general I love the ends. The one in the middle was truffle and white bean paste. It tasted ok.

First dish, starter… The shot of soup was really rich with a sophisticated taste. Plus the tempura. Small but indulgent.

Bass – I love fish. The chef did a very good job making it not fishy at all. (But most of the time I don’t mind eating fish that has the taste of fish – of course… I mean the not unusally fishy ones.)

Scallops with mash potato… I love seafood =p~~~ (Changed the shutter speed… hope the pictures will turn out better with such dim light. Don’t ask me about the DSLR… It’s be a bit awkward to take out a huge camera in that setting.) BUT
I STILL LOVE MY D80 -__-

Amongst all the dishes, I would say this is my favourite. It is not the usual meat/seafood dish. Grilled avocado with corn cream underneath. There are some other elements in it. Again, it was very buttery, and hearty.

Seared Foie Gras with fried potato and cherries. I’m not a big fan of Foie Gras (not because of process of making it and the “animal right issue”). However, this one was good. The rainier cherries and cherry sauce were good complements.

Duck meat with Asparagus and wild mushrooms – very juicy and tender. I like it + I love mushrooms (unlike MR :p)

Steak… I find that there has to be a dish of steak every time we dine out. This one was not bad, but not spectacular either. The leek was ok (I think JK liked it better), but I found the red tomato (etc.) puree went well with the steak. Maybe I was getting a bit full by the time I had this dish. And… sorry I couldn’t recall every single ingredients that they used for each dish. Should have brought a notebook or something – but that would make me such a geeky weirdo @_@

Took a break and looked around.. the dining place was of reasonable size. There is a glass kitchen in the middle of the room. According to Mike, it was freshly installed the evening before our visit. The old open-kitchen concept did not work well as it was getting too hot even with 7-8 air conditioners on. On each of the table, there was one rose – with multiple layers of petals, different from the usual type. Not sure about the species since there are hundreds. What I’m saying is that tiny little details go into the vibe.

Cheese and crackers… Not a huge fan. But I like cheese in general.

While waiting for the dessert, we were presented this… caramelized strawberries with pepper sauce. Nice and refreshing. Very nice touch.

Dessert of the night – orange gelato and this very rich chocolate treat. I found it too rich/sweet after everything. I’d love to try their dessert tasting menu… too bad they don’t offer that anymore.

After talking to Mike, he showed us the private room (above right) that can seat approximately 10 people.

It was almost 12am and again, we were the last patrons of the night… Walked out of the restaurant and took a picture while walking downstairs. Overall, it was a pleasant dining experience. Total was over half a grand (after tax, before gratuity) = tasting menu x3 + 10 cocktails or so.

FYI: Perigee Restaurant
55 Mills Street, The Distillery Historic District, Toronto, ON. M5A 3C4
Tel: 416-364-1397