The offending organic microgreens salad with quinoa-spelt croutons
When groupon first came out you could get incredible deals on restaurants that you otherwise couldn’t or wouldn’t spend money on or go out of your way to try. Now, years later, the restaurant deals seem to be less and less worth it. You save a bit of money (though you still pay taxes and are suggested to tip on the full price, not the discounted groupon, living social, vie urbaine or team buy price) but the special menu is usually lower quality (like Winterlicious in Toronto, or low-season restaurant weeks the world over). The whole thing starts to feel like a rip off.
But I pride myself on knowing a good deal when I see it. And when I saw Kaizen’s three-course gluten-free lunch (around a $60 value for $30 for two people), I took a closer look. Japanese food is generally dairy-free, too, and although the chocolate-green tea gluten-free cake for dessert probably wasn’t dairy-free, there’s usually sorbet to replace it. Actually dessert is usually why I don’t like prix fixe’s, because I can never have it, which makes the deal not worth it. Better to order à la carte.
The selling point of the menu was gluten-free tempura and gluten-free teriyaki chicken. Gluten-free teriyaki chicken you can make at home pretty easily by buying a few bottled sauces (gluten-free soy, gluten-free hoisin, or even just a gluten-free teriyaki sauce) and pour it over some stir-fried chicken and veg with white rice. But tempura is an art, and one that gluten-intolerant people never get to experience. Few people are going to go out of their way to create a gluten-free panko coating for shrimp, blanched eggplant and sweet potato at home. You need a ton of oil heated to exactly the right temperature, a metal utensil to lift the food from the oil, and you have to be prepared to deal with crumbly breading and a big, hot, soggy mess. No thanks.
In steps Kaizen to do it for me. Reputable Japanese restaurant that they are, they’re going to get the deep-frying right, I figure. And I’m safe in their hands, gluten-wise. They started this gluten-free menu this year after their chef underwent a dietary shift himself. Now the restaurant has also cut refined sugar, and offers brown rice and quinoa alternatives to white rice. Traditional it’s not, but healthy(ish) it is.
Unfortunately, things got off to a rocky start. We were the first people to arrive for lunch at 11:30. The room is empty. The server shows us to our table and then leaves for what seems like ages. We walk through the menu to make sure there’s no dairy in anything either. The starter is an Asian-inspired organic microgreens salad with with orange segments, Asian pear, radishes, sunflower seeds. Then we get the gluten-free chicken teriyaki and tempura as mains. There’s only one dessert, so there’s no discussion of it this early in the meal.
“…with quinoa-spelt croutons,” says our server as she sets down the salad. Wait. That’s not gluten-free. On a gluten-free menu they have something not gluten-free? She swears the kitchen told her it’s spelt and it’s gluten-free. Is an apple also an orange? No, it’s not.
Oh, right, she knew this because the croutons came from a box. They weren’t homemade. Unfortunately, they could not find that box…
So she leaves the salads on the table, temptingly, in front of us while the kitchen goes and prepares two more. You should take the bad plates away immediately. Finally a proper salad comes. It’s beautiful and delicious. And a little larger than the first one. Thanks.
But then we wait 30 minutes for our main courses. The room fills up a little, and around us we hear mumblings about the long waits for service (ordering, first course, second course). the family to our side (two parents, two kids, one big pregnant belly) was getting upset about their tight schedule, and even after mentioning their rush to the server and asking the bill in advance, the pregnant lady was fuming. You don’t piss off a pregnant woman. And the more pregnant she is, the harder you work to not piss her off. She was very pregnant. And you know she’s ballsy, because even if she’s not eating raw fish, she came to a sushi restaurant where there’s potential for contamination, even though the sushi counter is far from the kitchen at Kaizen. Like gluten-intolerance and spelt-quinoa croutons, you just never know.
The mains, when they finally did come, were delicious. A real treat. The teriyaki was deliciously sticky and sweet (refined sugar, despite the restaurant’s philosophy?). The tempura was fun. the coating was weird. There were quinoa puffs in it and it wasn’t crispy. It was hot and fresh, though. Any Japanese person would laugh at it. A real tempura chef would send the tempera-making person back to dishwashing. Wipe on. Wipe off.
(Chinese reference, not Japanese. Blasphemy, I know.)
But I was really happy with my teriyaki, and my gluten-intolerant friend was tickled by the tempura. The serving was large. The shrimp were huge (not sustainable, sadly, despite the eco-friendly practices), and my companion loved the sweet potato. I thought they were bland. Japanese yams would have had more flavour. And it’s not like you can’t get them here, they’re just a little more expensive and when you’re offering a lunch deal you’re not going to splurge on them because there goes your profit.
We’re waiting for dessert. Do we have to ask the server about it? Or does she just bring it out? It’ll be gluten-free for sure, but dairy-free? My companion thinks so. I mean, we already told the server at the beginning of the meal about us being lactose-intolerant in addition to gluten-intolerant. I’d also checked that it would be alright when making the reservation and the hostess had told us upon arriving that it was in our reservation and we just should remind the server. Clearly the kitchen had not been alerted. I’m not as confident as my companion.
We don’t get to order dessert. The server just brings it twenty minutes later. It’s the green tea-chocolate mousse. She explains proudly that it’s gluten-free. as she sets it in front of us. “Is it dairy-free?” I ask. She promptly scoops it back up.
10 minutes later she’s back to say the kitchen is preparing a fruit salad. Great. Super. They’re fresh out of sorbet, which would have made me only slight less unhappy. I seemingly live on sorbet at restaurants. Dessert imagination is lacking. Lots of the world eats dessert without involving a cow. Most Asian cuisines don’t even involve dessert in a meal, so I guess the fresh fruit makes sense. And the raspberries are awesome, it’s true. The strawberries, not so much. And suddenly I feel ripped off.
The hostess asks on our way out if we liked the meal. I can’t lie. “The tempura and the chicken teriyaki were a real treat,” I say. She sees my deception. There’s an awkward pause. She’s waiting…
“…but it’s too bad we could only have fruit even though I called in advance to make sure the dairy intolerance wouldn’t also be a problem. And the spelt croutons could be dangerous for celiacs who assume they’re gluten-free because it’s a gluten-free menu.”
she doesn’t say aything. I feel like I have to fill in the space. “I’m not sure if it was worth it…”
More waiting…
“…but, really, the teriyaki was a real treat.” Now I’ve downgraded it to just the teriyaki.
She doesn’t smile. We leave. When OpenTable asked how my meal was the next day I told it honestly what I wrote above. I didn’t hear back from the restaurant with an apology. I’m pretty sure they were getting similar feedback, at least about the slow service, from other customers. Maybe they had their hands full.
Are the days of worthwhile restaurant deals over? Or is it just for diners with intolerances and those with less than 3 hours for a less-than-inspiring lunch?
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