A Saucy Gem in Streetsville

Published April 19, 2012 at 2:54 pm

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1st Impression: Casual Fine Dining
Dress Code: Casual
Unique for: Open Grill – Great for Watching Chefs In Action
Value:  Bang On
Mains Price Range: $14-$34

Saucy Restaurant in Streetsville is a little gem of a place to eat at. It has been a Streetsville fixture for 10 years and has been serving its loyal customers a creative selection of dishes that features flavour profiles from the East to West.  It has a fine dining appeal without the stuffiness and without the fine dining prices our local neighbouring city, Toronto, can and will charge.

Saucy’s menu is so creatively concocted that it always takes me some time to decide what my palate feels for – East, West or a bit of both. Hmm?

Tonight I skipped the appetizer selection which includes items like: Wild Mushrooms, Tandoori Chicken, Mussels, Asparagus on Toast, Beef Poutine, Pernod Prawns, Fried Brie, Onion Soup, or Spring Rolls. 

Since I was in the mood for pasta, I needed the extra room for the carb overload and went with the Lobster Fettuccini Alfredo ($21). A butter poached lobster wading in a shallow pool of parmesan Alfredo sauce and pleasantly combined with Roma tomatoes, and spinach. It was beautifully presented and each part cooked to perfection. The Roma tomatoes and lobster added a nice sweet finish to the dish; a unique savory and sweet melody on my palate.

I am a serious food fanatic and when I’m out with my friends for dinner, they know the regular routine of having to wait to eat their meal so that I can snap the essence of the dish in a photograph and also having to share it with me. So the beauty for me of dining with friends is their obligatory surrender of this routine I put them through and am forever gracious for. I come from a family that shares food, a ritual that may look strange to others especially at a restaurant since we all pick from one another’s plates and we are also a camera happy family, so the routine is close to my heart and family.

The first dish I tried is the Stuffed Chicken ($23), not usually something I would order at a restaurant since I frequent the bird at home, but something that is worth trying at Saucy. It is a supreme chicken stuffed with a mixture of sundried tomatoes, spinach, mushroom and cream cheese sitting in a puddle of pan jus and served with mashed potatoes and grilled vegetables. Again, beautifully plated, and a deliciously savory finger licking dish!

Then I moved onto the meat eater of the bunch who had the Angus Strip ($34), a 10 oz dry aged strip loin which was grilled to medium rare and served with rice and grilled vegetables and finished with a peppercorn, Cabernet jus. Personally, I find that steaks are hard to mess up outside of charring it until it’s well done and overpowering it with sauces that kill the flavour of the kill, so I could have done without the peppercorn, Cabernet jus. But that’s just me. A well seasoned medium rare steak is good enough for me; I love the flavour of the beef in its marriage to the grill.

Another meat lover in the group opted for the Burger ($14) which is a dry aged Angus hamburger grilled with a garlic sauce on a toasted Kaiser bun and a side of Yukon fries poutine style. I think the burger is on the Saucy menu as a necessity. It is the safe meat option for all restaurants to cater to those finicky eaters and really not something I believe they pay much attention to. It was a decent burger, but there are better burgers insauga. It’s a slab of unseasoned Angus beef which even the garlic sauce couldn’t hide. The poutine really doesn’t do poutine justice and Celebrity Chef Chuck Hughes would gasp at this attempt at fries, gravy and cheese. If you are going to do poutine, do it right. The curds of cheese were virtually non-existent, and a true measure of a good poutine is how much of the cheesy chunks touch each and every single fry and pull apart as you try to eat them.

Of course the only person that had to make room for dessert and an espresso was me. I had my traditional favorite, the crème brulee. The flavour of the brulee was bang on, but the top layer of caramelized sugar was about two millimeters too thick. The accompanying whipped cream, crème anglais sauce, and fresh fruit was a nice balance to the sweetness of the brulee.  Two millimeters more of the caramelized sugar crust didn’t stop me from polishing off this end to my night.

Saucy Restaurant is one of Streetsville’s little gems, and a must-try. Stick to the creative options, anything under the entree’s section really and you will enjoy true work of the Chef.

Saucy
111 Queen Street South Streetsville
Mississauga
, Ontario
(905) 542-9600

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