K - Café
155 New Gower St.
I’d been driving past K
- Cafe five days a week and not gotten around to reviewing it. Guest and I
found ourselves there recently having made an impulsive decision to ditch plans
to dine at a popular chicken and ribs restaurant. Sticky fingers, clogged
dental work and being covered ear to ear in barbecue sauce, pork fat and
chicken grease had lost the great appeal it had had at 3 pm. By dinnertime,
after my stopgap 4 pm muffin and tea, I was merely “famished,” not
“gut-founded.” Just to explain, for me the resolution of gut-foundedness is
found in the sacrifice of birds and/or animals, slowly roasted over a naked
flame.
My new desires had
turned in the direction of something simple with less mess. I felt K - Café
might provide what I was looking for. A white sidewalk sign with blue lettering
announced “mussels.” That was enough to get me inside. My first impression was
of a room with too much furniture. It had the look of a space temporarily
holding extra tables and chairs from an adjoining room while said room’s floor
was being waxed and polished.
I imagined myself an
object inside a crowded red box - because K - Café’s walls were painted red.
(For those colourists among you, guest insisted the walls were “plum”) Along
with the numerous tables, chairs, planters and artificial plants was a
scattering of well framed black-and-white and colour pictures.
K - Café’s house vins
are the Chilean Frontera wines from Concha y Toro. I enjoyed a quite mild,
fruity cabernet sauvignon/merlot at a reasonable $4.95 per glass. It went down
well with my appetizer of steamed mussels. The mussels were large and very good
but personally I would have preferred ones of slightly firmer texture. The
mussels came with a large side bowl of melted butter for dipping, in which I
detected powdered garlic.
Guest had had K -
Café’s so-called “signature” strawberry/spinach salad before and didn’t
hesitate to order it again. He savoured every leaf, every dressing bathed
almond sliver and strawberry slice. I thought a salad of such repute should
have come on a larger, showier plate than a side plate. Superior taste aside,
it lacked in visual presentation. The vibrant red and green colours were
delightful but I would have made an attractive arrangement of the strawberries
and toasted almonds atop the layer of baby spinach.
Guest's entree of
blackened salmon and rice pilaf was competently cooked. However, the salmon,
while deliciously delicate and moist, did not have the truly blackened, crusty
surface of an authentic Louisiana blackened fish fillet. It was a softer skin
consisting of dark hued herbs and spices. The few vegetables on the plate were
flavourful but the rice pilaf was a boring, dry mound of white rice that needed
some butter stirred through it.
My entree could not
have been better. It was a fabulous mixture of fettuccine and tomato sauce
tossed with bits of fresh salmon, shrimps and scallops. The dish, called
Mediterranean fisherman's pasta, would definitely have passed muster with any
Mediterranean fisherman or fisherwoman. The seafood in the dish had been taken
off the fire at just the right moment. It was beautifully plump, tender and
moist.
Dessert was a rich
piece of freshly baked carrot cake with cream cheese icing. It was a superb
creation, tasting of carrots, nuts and various spices.
I was
wondered where the "K" in K - Cafe came from until I was told Kim
Soper owns and operates the café. Ms. Soper also cooks in the restaurant. In
fact, she cooked the meal we enjoyed. Apart from a few minor problems it
delivered exactly what any cafe meal should, tasty vittles at decent prices,
with home cooked quality - a simple, effective formula that every cafe should
employ.
Our meal for two at K –
Café - including four glasses of wine and gratuity - cost $102.55.
The noise level at K –
Café was low. It was not wheelchair accessible.
Best Points:
Competent cooking.
Areas for
Improvement:
Better visual
presentation of your “signature” salad.
Ratings Category:
K – Café gets 8 out of
10 points.
7 points =
satisfactory, 7.5 = good, 8 = very good, 9 = excellent, 10 = perfection