Since my previous review of Gourmet Garden International Cuisine, there have been a whole lot of new developments, I’m sorry to say. That’s why you need to go there – to tell them to stop, and to experience the amazing Pakistani food before it’s too late.
When I first went to Gourmet Garden I noticed the menu was trying to combine traditional Pakistani dishes with pasta, panini, and a whole host of items that were very much not South Asian. I was okay with that because I could ignore all the junk and focus on the stellar Pakistani selection. Now I want to cry. Apparently the owner’s son is taking over the restaurant and is responsible for re-vamping the menu with a North American ‘healthy’ food slant. All skepticism of ‘healthy’ lasagna aside, I’m pretty heart-broken that the manager feels that a piece of bread with some salty, sliced, grocery store meat and cheese is more desirable to the St. John’s lunch crowd than a stew of tender lamb combined with the perfect blend of spices. These two meals come from very different traditions and I know which one is better. Don’t you dare try to tell me that panin are Italian. Yes, good panini are beautiful, simple and a good lunch, but that is not what Gourmet Garden is offering. If the bread is not made in-house with the highest quality flour, the meat is not hand-sliced from the top quality meat, and the cheese is not made with care locally or imported, in essence, carefully chosen, then all you have is an over-priced sandwich. Why should anyone spend their money on a lunchbox they could replicate at home for less money? Heck, a lunchbox that you make yourself can even come with a yogurt, a snack or a compartment for a juice box. Ironically, one of the only things that the new menu of Gourmet Garden and the old have in common are the fresh juices and smoothies, since both North America and Pakistan can agree that mangos are delicious. But how many mango trees grow in North American backyards? Yeah, exactly. So, again, Pakistan wins.
I found out that Gourmet Garden now offers brunch and I nearly died from joy. I had dreams of Pakistani brunch of biryani and lentil crepes and chutneys in place of jams!!! Naan and chapatti to make toast commit suicide because it would have no reason to live. Unfortunately, there is again a menu transition in effect. I got to the restaurant and there’s a new chef. Seems like a nice guy, but definitely not Pakistani. 4 standard breakfast options on the menu, like steak and eggs, or crepes. Okay, here’s the first of my complaints. If you’re trying to do brunch a la North America, you need to do it right. Even fancy restaurants suffer at brunch. You need a perfect hollandaise, and you need croissants, home-made, not bought from Sobeys. Maybe some challah, some waffles, real maple syrup, fresh whipped cream, fresh-baked scones. You need sauces that are made of more than sugar and some sort of tasteless fruit.
The brunch saving grace was the Pakistani menu option – beautifully spiced ground lamb patty in home-made flaky wrap. Sobeys stayed out of this one. The chapatti bread was absolutely to die for. This Pakistani woman knows what she’s doing. No offense, new non-Pakistani crepe-making chef, but this bread is the equivalent of the most amazing French brioche, but savoury and done so much better than you could ever do a brioche. I’m sorry. Why try to change what you’re so good at, restaurant? I feel like I’m lecturing an adolescent! Love yourself for who you are! Don’t try to change yourself to make a boy like you. Certainly don’t let a child take control of your life. Family is family, but sometimes family is wrong. Okay, fine, the market for Pakistani food is not huge in St. John’s, and that was his argument, but it’s all about marketing. If people don’t know how good your food is, what reason do they have to try it? Getting bums in chairs is the key. More shmucks like me writing reviews about you.
The brunch buffet was all Pakistani…except the store-bought muffins on the side…gross.
Four beef dishes swimming in fat and oil. Cow’s feet! Where else can you get that? A big table of South Asians came in and gobbled it down. Fresh huge pans of beef biryani were brought in. The same daal and frozen vegetables from the buffet…the daal was better this time, actually, and the vegetables were decent, just like lunch. So it’s fine, but oh God, the lamb in chapatti a la carte was so much better than everything, including my crepe with bananas and orange sauce, which was made completely with strawberry and I felt I had to try just to be fair to the new menu. Last time I checked orange was very much a different fruit, and a different colour.
Finally, a peace offering. The brunch buffet had dessert. Well kind of. You should come just for the halwa. Not to be confused with the Middle Eastern sesame paste dessert, this is more like a cream of wheat breakfast cereal, sweetened slightly and served with puri, a fried lentil bread. Completely traditional and warm and filling and comforting. So fried lentils don’t sound amazing, but that’s where you need to give this place’s Pakistani food a second chance. Three 6″ round and thin wraps came to the table, hot and so flavourful that you could eat them on their own, and I did, not knowing until later that you’re supposed to scoop up the halwa with them. No harm done. They certainly did not go to waste. I couldn’t stop myself, and that very rarely happens to me. So many things I have yet to learn about this cuisine. Imagine what all of St. John’s could learn if you decided not to force them to eat horrible panini!!
If this restaurant changes over to all-American (read pasta, sandwiches and, God forbid, quiche) it will be a sad, sad day in the culinary development of downtown St. John’s. As it stands, the American-style menu will be served everyday for lunch, and the Indian buffet will be served for lunch on Thursdays and Fridays, with maybe some Pakistani foods sticking around on the same American-style evening menu.
Please, please, please, St. John’s eaters, go to this restaurant and beg for the Pakistani food to stay. Even be so bold as to ask that the American-style food leave. There are times when you should respect your elders, and try to support the business they started, menu-changing son. First and foremost it’s all about a good product, and you already have that in the Pakistani food. If the pasta took over you wouldn’t have that anymore, and even with incredible marketing you just can’t compete in that market in St. John’s, what with newish upstarts like the Pantry and the Hungry Heart Cafe, who have much stronger “local”, “organic”, and socially-conscious mandates. “Niche” is the right word here, and the niche of fast lunches of so-so food into which the restaurant will fall is not one in which you will thrive.
Here is my advice in the form of gustatory flattery: If I could eat your puri every week for the rest of my life I would die a happy, slightly overweight, happy person. If you can offer me the best Pakistani food in St. John’s at even higher prices than the ridiculously low ones that you currently charge, I would pay it. I have developed an addiction to your food in three visits. I crave it. My mouth salivates at the possibility of lamb from your mother’s deft hands. Fennel and coriander appear in my dreams. I wake up Saturday morning and feel sorry for the poor saps who get excited over eggs benedict because they just don’t know what Pakistan and Gourmet Garden have to offer.
Here’s my practical advice. You can’t be just a casual, inexpensive Pakistani or North American spot or you’ll never make any money. Your Pakistani food is fancy by North American standards. Your buffet is casual. India Gate does the buffet/fancy dining establishment gimmick well. If you go that route, you can do it better. Your American food, however, is a cop-out, without any kind of reward in sight. That’s just self-loathing and foolish. I’m sorry, but this is how sad your restaurant makes me. I love your food and you’re taking it away from me and everyone else in St. John’s who would love your food as much as I do. More people should love your food! This is how good it is, that I complain so fervently about its soon demise.
Save this restaurant from generic food!!!
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