TORONTO: Once in a lifetime

UPDATE: Susur has closed as of May 2008. The restaurant has reopened as Madeline’s under Susur Lee’s longtime, former sous chef Dominic Armanal. Named after Lee’s mother, Madeline’s is still owned by Lee who is heading Shang in New York City.

This is one meal I will remember forever. Even years from now, if I’m leaving the oven on and wondering what my name is, I’ll remember this night at Susur.

Eating here is definitely an indulgence, but it’s worth it. There’s a reason Food and Wine named Susur Lee one of the world’s top 10 chefs. It’s hard to describe his food style. It’s above Chinese, beyond fusion and completely ingenious.

Plus Susur’s staff are amazingly gracious, treating stuffy suits, lovestruck couples, and giggly girls with the same hospitality. It was a nice place to take my sister whom I only see occasionally.

We ordered the five-course tasting menu which changes every day. The entree is served first, followed by lighter dishes. Neither of us was served the same dish, so in the end, we actually indulged in 10 different plates.

The amuse-bouche included:

• tuna croquette with saffron aioli and chorizo
• roasted red beet with apple and baked goat’s cheese
• and shrimp cake with crispy shallots.

And we hadn’t even started the courses yet.

FIRST COURSE

One main was a bold roasted bison with stilton cheese and black olive sauce, paired with polenta tart with zucchini, eggplant, braised onion and parsnip chip. I have never tasted any meat cooked like this, with such tenderness and flavour.

The other main was cornish hen with peanut curry sauce, sweet and sour plantain, taro dauphine and spanish tomato, stuffed with spinach and bechamel. Now, WHO thinks up of pairing flavours like that?

SECOND COURSE

This I’m starting to call the “heart attack” course, both for content and execution. I had seared foie gras on a puff pastry, topped with a poached quail egg with caviar.

My sister had foie gras stuffed with oyster and caviar, as well as another slice of foie gras on a Cantonese steamed bread with sea moss sauce, topped with poached quail egg and caviar and a cup of oyster broth she said tasted like “butter.”

THIRD COURSE

By this point, we had to stop the tasting wines that had been coming with each course. There was too much to take in! I’m kicking myself for not writing the wines down though, because our server had paired them perfectly.

Third came the fish course. Both were caramelized sable. One came with dill sauce, wild hedgehog mushrooms and sea asparagus. The other with sake and carrot sauce, braised endive, and sea asparagus.

Like the meat, the fish was so tender and full of flavour. It was bliss.

FOURTH COURSE

Already ranting and raving about how wonderful everything was, the seafood came fourth. My roast lobster claw came with lobster and shrimp ravioli, drizzled with pink peppercorn lobster bisque, with side of squash puree and chorizo and asparagus.

My sister’s roast lobster tail came with B.C. honey mussel with red pepper coulis and braised daikon.

FIFTH COURSE

This is the point where we wished someone had said the ole “save room for dessert.” Out came this gorgeous two-tiered tray of nine desserts. We thought maybe we had to pick a few, but no, all of it was for us.

I remember a raspberry black pepper sherbet, a chocolate molten cake, a fruit struedel and some mousse cakes but it was all divine.

The 5-course tasting menu was $100 Can. I daresay it was worth every penny. Wine and gratuity extra of course.

POST-SCRIPT

After dinner, we got a tour of the kitchen – and met Chef Susur Lee. I was worried he was tired of gawkers but he was super nice. He showed us the private dining room behind the kitchen and we chatted about the trip to China that my sister and I took last fall. He even posed for a photo. After all that, we forgot to tell him how wonderful his food was.

Then we bumbled our way out the door – and forgot to tell the staff how wonderful they were.

All unforgivable sins for an unforgettable experience.

(P.S. I’m generally a geek but I did not take notes during dinner. Our server Terence was gracious enough to email us our menu afterwards.)

Susur, 601 King Street West, Toronto, (416) 603-2205. Open for dinner Mon-Sat 6-10 p.m. Closed Sundays.