I had this past Saturday night off! That NEVER happens in the restaurant industry, so I decided to take full advantage of it. I met a friend and we headed to Queen West to check out the legacy that is Terroni. However, after arriving there and seeing the line out the door and down the block we decided that we were in need of some other delicious eats.
I pulled out my trusty I-phone (Glitz) and checked on Urbanspoon. We ended up at Cinquecento Cafe (791 King St. West, Toronto). We were impressed finding a Italian place not too far away.
Starting the evening off right, we ordered a decently priced bottle of Malbec, and decided to split the Antipasto plate to start. When it arrived we were pleasantly surprised. Although there was only a small amount of meat (some salami and Mortadella), the fresh grilled vegetables were so plentiful. There was shaved parmesan, grilled eggplant, olives, mushrooms, roasted red peppers, grilled zucchini, pickled eggplant, and even a mini caprese salad with fresh basil and all. Each of the vegetables had been brushed, grilled, and/or seasoned differently and the flavours were very impressive.
We followed this with Nona's recipe of stuffed shells. The three groundmeats were cooked and seasoned delightfully, and packed into larger sized pasta shells. Presentation was good and each were neatly decorated with a light amount of herbs. It was a perfect amount of food to finish off with dessert.
We choose the tiramisu… probably not the best part of the meal. There was a lack of flavour to it, not too strong espresso taste or lady finger sponge, and it seemed drenched with whipcream, covered in caramel sauce. Overall a good experience. The owner was kicking around and made a point to check on us during our dinner. I plan to go back at some point, looking around the restaurant I noticed the pizza's looked huge with a great Italian thin crust. The other pastas looked packed with flavour and like quite generous portions.
