small plates

lunch today at the small plates cafe. of the selection, the standout was a beef carpaccio with a raw quail egg, its top carefully removed to reveal a lemon-yellow yolk against the delicate pale blue of the shell. the cornmeal-dusted pan-fried trout was also good with its sauce of sage and brown butter: the chefs had dusted only the flesh, leaving the skin to turn crisp against the pan. as an afterthought, i picked up a small rosette of house-smoked salmon with a tiny salad of thin-sliced cucumbers dressed with sour cream nestled in the center.

this week, a host of interesting smoothies at slice. the most promising was one composed of macadamia nutmilk, bananas, agave syrup, raw cacao pulp, and vanilla. it tasted like a mild chocolate banana shake, even though the cacao pulp tastes nothing (to me at least) like chocolate. in brazil, the juice-stands with which the streets are strewn sell blends of cacao with mint, raspberry, acerola, or lemon.

dinner was a plate of ravioli (butternut squash and goat cheese) in a tomato cream sauce. on the side, broiled skate wings that were golden brown on the outside and barely-cooked inside, drenched in a mignonette of shallots, champagne vinegar, and pepper, and a slice of grilled flank steak full of beefy flavour.