susur lee – Tiana Feng

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For my birthday we made a reservation to Bent, run by Susur Lee and his sons. This was the second in the line of the Lee family restaurants in Toronto and is known for it’s raw seafood bar.

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We started with the Truffled Filet of Beef Carpaccio: garlic potato shoestrings, red onion, Asian pear, braised shiitake mushrooms, Taiwanese vinaigrette. This dish was both beautiful in presentation and marriage of flavour and textures. I loved the addition of pear.

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Next came the Vietnamese Seafood Ceviche: shrimp, scallop, octopus, mussels, jalepeno, asian pear, red pepper, celery, potato, vietnamese coriander & lime, chorizo buckwheat rice cake. The spice in it was nice. My favourite part of it was the octopus.

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We were totally obsessed with everything about the Carmelized Black Cod: Asparagus (wrapped in bacon), thai ginger squash & carrot puree, lemon chive veloute. The puree was silky and heavenly and the addition of crunchy chickpeas was a nice touch.

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We did get one veggie dish to calm ourselves from all that meat. Jerusalem artichockes (which I didn’t know were shaped like mini potatoes) paired beautifully with hazelnuts and goat cheese.

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To drink I had the And Also (yes that’s what it is called). It contained Broker’s Gin, Tromba Tequila, Aperol, Lillet Blanc, watermelon juice, cucumber, grapefruit bitters, simple syrup and fresh sours. It paired very nicely with the dishes we ordered.

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Nash had the Georgetown Storm containing El Dorado 12 year rum, homemade ginger beer, nutmeg, lime and orange.

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Our waiter highly recommended the Wild Banana and Chocolate Chip Cake and we were super glad that we listened to him. It was divine and I loved the vanilla marshmallow that came with it.

Birthday dinner at Bent was totally worth it. It’s a sharing restaurant so it’s recommended that two people have at least 4 dishes. It’s a great place to celebrate or if you’re feeling particularly ballin’.

A few weeks ago, Nash and I had a lovely date night at Susur Lee’s restaurant Lee. I haven’t been to any of his restaurants prior, but had wanted to for the longest time since seeing him on Masterchef! All the items are meant to be shared so we ordered a few things.

I spoke about our reservation for the entire week to friends and colleagues and all of them recommending ordering the exact same thing: the slaw! Susur’s Signature Singaporean-style Slaw ($22) is a mixture of like 18 different things including taro root, fennel, flower pedals, daikon sprouts, fried shallots, sesame seeds and more. I literally cannot remember all the things in it. It was served on a plate like a mini mountain and the server mixed it for us so that we could get most of the ingredients in each bite. It was one of the most flavourful and colourful salads I have ever eaten. By the way, these shitty phone photos don’t do justice to the food

Next was these Spice Crusted Diver Scallop ($29). They were served with crispy bacon, squash puree, grapefruit and a sweet bean pesto. The scallops did have a little kick of some sort and I was in love with the puree.

Next was the Cold Pressed Octopus ($17). The octopus was served in thin slices with a vinaigrette. While good, we found it the least memorable dish of the night.

Our last dish was the Slow Braised Beef with a potato and leek puree, crispy shallots and sour cream. Everything in the dish melted in our mouths and we wanted to lick the bowl afterward.

To drink I had the Lee Lemonade and Nash had the Burnt Orange Manhattan. They were both delicious (and booze heavy).

Of course we saved room for dessert. The special of the night was a banana ice cream with a homemade toasted marshmallow. If we could lick the plates we would’ve.