Cafeteria

For our anniversary this year, we thought we'd try Cafeteria, the newest venture by local restauranteurs Andrey Durbach and Chris Stewart.

You'd think we'd have learned by now to at least look up the location of the restaurant we'd like to visit, never mind write down its address. But there we were, peering out of the windows of the bus as it zoomed down Main Street. We weren't too worried, as the area has a plethora of good restaurants, and we could always find an alternative. Fortunately, we finally spotted Cafeteria's inviting window and hopped off at the next stop.

The concept behind Cafeteria is really quite simple: offer a short list of dishes tailored to fit within predetermined price points. On our visit, the prices were $10 per starter, $20 per main and $6.50 per dessert, or $33.50 for a three-course meal. Having had amazing food experiences at Durbach and Stewart's Pied-à-Terre, La Buca and Parkside, we had pretty high expectations, and we were not disappointed.

We started off with sparkling lemonade and dark and stormy cocktails.

We wanted to get all four appetizers but we settled on sauteed prawns and scallops with anchovy butter and watercress, along with pork belly with kimchi, crispy potato, quail egg and mirin. Both were so good, maybe we should have ordered all four.

One of our main courses was the veal schnitzel with spatzle, spinach and paprika sauce. The crisply coated veal was well-seasoned and went well with the other ingredients.

Our other main course was the NY steak with papas Provençal and chimichurri. The perfectly medium-rare steak was a generous cut, and the chimichurri sauce had a great zing to it.

Our first dessert was chocolate sabayon with rum sour cream and blueberries. We were expecting a more mousse-like texture, but the denseness of chocolate was satisfying nonetheless.

The second dessert was butterscotch pudding with sponge toffee. The chewy toffee was delectable, as was the pudding.

Service was great the entire evening, from the greeting, to the wine recommendations, to the general easy-going but attentive attitude.