Avalon Mall
Ph. 726-4949
The great actor, Laurence Olivier, had a reputation for occasional cutting remarks. One day, when in his seventies, a thoughtful friend took him to a Los Angeles restaurant for lunch. Upon entering the establishment he stared and quipped derisively, “This looks like one of those places where they sing Happy Birthday to you.” Fog City looks like one of those places too but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It all depends on the atmosphere you’re in the mood for, the food, the service and the quality of the “singers.”
An impressive fake stands just inside the entrance to Fog City, a tall non-native tree - perhaps a fig. I’m not quite sure how it fits into the restaurant’s theme - a celebration of St. John’s and Newfoundland - but I like it, in the same way I can appreciate a good model of most anything. The rest of Fog City is a circus of open cooking, paintings, murals, pictures, lights, televisions, collectibles and oversized menus, menus with items named after Newfoundland icons and premiers. I especially like some of the restaurant’s black and white images of old St. John’s. Fog City’s perky servers - looking mostly like college students - add to the general energy of the place.
On the day my companion and I visited our server was a five-year veteran of Fog City named Keith. I liked his style because he appeared to know the extensive menu inside and out. This knowledge included an ability to give detailed descriptions of how Fog City’s dishes and drinks were prepared. Also, Keith was not shy about telling us what he personally liked on the menu and why. Most of all I was impressed by his skill at knowing the appropriate amount of personal “space” to give his customers. Mind you, I think he’d probably have a go at singing Happy Birthday to you with minimal encouragement.
I’ve always been a sucker for slightly elaborate cocktail drinks and did not need a push to try a Fog City frozen Monkstown margarita. At first I thought it a bit dull but after a couple of quick stirs the flavours of the Jose Cuervo tequila, cointreau and powdered bar mix came through. When a powdered mix is used a frozen version is better because it helps disguise the artificial taste of the powder granules. My companion started with our dinner wine, Jindalee cabernet, an inexpensive Australian red.
My margarita helped me develop a craving for some shellfish. Fog City’s menu offered mussels Caboto, “a half pound of fresh Newfoundland mussels prepared in an Italian sauce.” The sauce - essentially a bruschetta topping - a mixture of finely chopped tomato, red pepper and onion was quite flavourful. However, it was an uneven batch of mussels, with some displaying good size, some not, some flavour, some not.
Under the heading “Premier Selections” my companion found the entrée, Peckford’s chicken and rib combo. This dish consisted of a quarter chicken marinated in olive oil and herbs and a rack of ribs in barbecue sauce. The ribs were smoky, sticky and sweet, just the way I like them. I also liked the chicken. It was moist and bursting with flavours, amplified by pan juices and respectable gravy.
A good vinegar based coleslaw and mashed potato came with the plate. The coleslaw was crunchy and tart but the mashed potato was a bagged fast food restaurant product from a national processor. If restaurants like Fog City employ real cooks, shouldn’t they - the cooks - be the ones peeling, cooking and mashing the spuds?
From the “Townie Favourites” section I chose the cedar plank salmon. It’s a fairly simple technique. A piece of fresh salmon is placed on a water soaked plank of cedar wood and then baked in the oven. I suspect Fog City’s salmon was left in the oven too long, as it was somewhat dry and had no great flavour. I tried to detect some smoky cedar flavour but could not. It must have been a scentless, neutral, unappetizing cedar plank.
Like many large family style restaurants in St. John’s these days, Fog City does not make its own desserts. However, I give them full marks for buying some products from local bakers. For example, Sweet Temptations - a very good small bakery in Mount Pearl - made my piece of double chocolate explosion cake for Fog City. It was a delicious piece of chocolate heaven. The cake was studded with chocolate chips and had chocolate ganache flowing from its centre. I let every precious forkful linger in my mouth to tantalize my taste buds. Homemade taste with restaurant presentation would be a good description of the sugary conclusion to our Fog City meal. May all your repasts end as sweetly.
The meal for two at Fog City - including cocktails, two glasses of wine and tip - cost approximately $100.00.
Best Points:
Snappy service and bright atmosphere.
Areas for improvement:
Prepare your seafood as expertly as your meats.
Ratings Category:
Fog City gets 7 points out of 10.