restaurant review

So I finally went to Mo:le, the restaurant I've been coveting from afar for, well, I guess it must be two and a half months. Here's my review: eh.

I have a hard time just going to a new restaurant. I have to walk by it, hesitate, look in the windows, read the menu and the specials posted outside, leave, think about it, come back, stare longingly from the other side of the street, dash into the doorway, pause, turn around and leave again, and then come back another day. Sometimes I need to do this several times.

Because you are cool, you know that mole is any of various spicy sauces of Mexican origin, usually having a base of onion, chilies, nuts or seeds, and unsweetened chocolate and served with meat or poultry. I like it, and I figured any restaurant named after it, with an inexplicable colon inserted, would be interested in flavour combining in a way that would please me. (No puns on colon included here. They are extra.)

I had a good time cutting little pieces of my meal, lifting the fork and inserting it gently into my mouth, chewing thoughtfully, and making notes in my book. No real restaurant critic would ever behave in this ridiculous fashion, but it pleased me, and something had to, because the food was dull.

I know breakfast isn't a show meal, and I know judging a restaurant on its eggs benedict is like judging it on its fish 'n' chips. But the house Benny was on the specials menu, and it came with bechamel sauce, which, being French, sounded suspiciously like something Fancy, which is what I wanted. (I admit I was uneasy. I knew it was bad that the specials menu was the same every day, but I chose to ignore the warning signs.) Besides, it turns out to only be a breakfast-and-lunch place, further distancing it from my mole dreams.

Because you are clever, you know that bechamel is a rich, white sauce, prepared with butter and cream. This one also included lemon, which made it a sauce almost entirely indistinguishable from hollandaise.

The meal was well-presented. It was conceptually good -- roast tomatoes, ciabatta, and sliced avacado, with the aforementioned bechamel and a poached egg under it someplace. In practise, I found the flavour of the roast tomato far, far too reminiscent of Big Mike's Famous Ketchup Benny. The avacado was nice, and the lemon bechamel was fine, but the meal seemed to be almost entirely unspiced, and there was nothing to augment the mild flavour of the avacado, or cut the ketchuppicity of the tomaotoes.

The server asked me if I wanted hot sauce, and I felt guilty taking it, since a Serious Diner wouldn't disguise the food with added sauces. I'm glad I did, because the hot sauce was actually quite good, and I ended up wishing they'd made it an official part of the Benny.

So: pleasant, informal atmosphere, good decor (Studded chairs!) and cool staff. I would go again and try something else, but it's not The Magic Breakfast Place.

--rf