Centro - Failsafe - mostly

Centro is one of those tony places everyone must venture into at least once in their visit to Toronto. Everytime I come, I see celebrities. My first visit here was during Winterlicious but we ended up ordering from the non-prix fixe menu that time, and have never looked back.

Tonight, I was definitely in the mood for lamb, and they know how to do it right here. Upon being seated, they bring you out some freshly baked bread, wrapped in a burlap-like cloth to keep everything warm. It was served with a side of butter sprinkled with fleur de sel, and some other churned butter curds. Upon asking, we found out that it was a form of cow's milk cheese...called cashew cheese. Nice cheesy flavour with the appearance of cheese curds.

Tightly bundled up…

Unveiled…

My martini

The wine storage. If you are rich and famous, why would you keep your good wines at home, and bother with transport whenever you dine here? Well, you wouldn't! You'd just bring a few of your favourites and have Centro store it for you, when whenver you pop in for a bite, your trusty wines are there for your enjoyment. Oh, but of course!

The appetizers we chose were both seafood dishes, as we were both going to order red meat for our main course. I ordered a martini to accompany my appetizer of Spicy Mussels ($20). When the dish arrived, most of the mussels had escaped from the shell. The broth was a bit too salty, but well suited for bread dipping. Lot of herbs and spices, making it a very flavourful dish. At first, I was a little disappointed by the number of shells I pulled out without any mussels in it. But, at the end when I counted all the mussels in the broth (yes, I'm very anal that way), it was all accounted for in the end. The inner accountant in me was satisfied...

The lobster salad ($20) was amazing too...served on a bed of romaine lettuce hearts, you got almost half the meat from a lobster body. The tomatillo salsa dressing was light, and complemented the sweetness of the lobster meat with a slight citrus undertone. On top of everything, there was a chip...a parmesan crisp, pure cheese, toasted to a crisp. So good!! All in all, generous portions of both appetizers...hoping we have enough room for our entree

The beef tenderloin ($38) is a masterpiece of meat. If you can only order one thing from there, order this. The portion is generous, so much so that it's like they grilled the tenderloin, and then decided to add another piece of tenderloin on top of it. , the meat is tender and cooked to perfection. The sauce is nicely reduced and the accompanying marinated mushroom and asparagus and beets.

The rack of lamb ($41) served rare and simply with some fresh green peas and gnocchi. When my rack which was the rarest I had seen lamb served. It is a little underdone, but not overly so. I do enjoy my meat rare, steaks with a cool centre, etc. The deep fried garlic chips were super crunchy and mellow, not too garlicky. The sauce was rich and there was enough on the plate that you could finish and feel satisfied, but not stuffed.

I ordered a glass of red wine to accompany my lamb. It arrived with a little bit of cork in it...so I asked my server to get me a new glass. His response? It's acceptable to have a bit of cork in wine nowadays...but if I "insisted", he would pour me a new glass. He whisked the glass away and returned moments later. I get the feeling he just strained it through a coffee filter or something...not impressed at all.
I would say that was the only thing that ruined an otherwise spectacular night.
I did spot someone famous this time too, but wasn't allowed to take a picture. It was Alex Rodriguez and Rominson Cano frm the Yankees. Who knows, maybe next time I'll be quicker and luckier!