9420 91 Street, Edmonton Alberta 780.465.5727
Last Wednesday, the staff at the Red Ox Inn were baffled I'm sure. For a tiny establishment - it only seats 25 or 30 people - there were an unbelievable amount of birthday sparklers required. Between 6:30 and 8:30, there were 5 couples celebrating 5 birthdays and 1 anniversary! Greedy individuals that Cakes and I are, we contributed one of the birthdays (mine!) and the anniversary. We had a great laugh with our fellow dining companions about the endless procession of sparklers. And everyone there is your fellow dining companion, owing to the tininess of the dining room. Normally, I would be a bit put off by that, by the prospect of such intimacy with total strangers while dining, but at the Red Ox, it's a perfectly collegial and homey experience. Besides, it gave me a great chance to perv at other people's plates.
The decor is understated and really well thought out in a way that most Edmonton restaurants, even some of the good ones, are not. Its crisp clean white walls are lined, almost on all sides, with gorgeous black leather banquettes. All this is, of course, only apparent once you've done your homework and secured a reservation, because tables in this joint go fast and if you turn up without a reservation, even on a Wednesday night, you probably won't get a seat.
The menu is lovely and succinct. Not too few choices, not too many. It gave me a sense of confidence in the chef's abilities to see that he was not trying to be a jack-of-all-trades, as is so often the case. Edmonton restauranteurs seem, from time to time, to forget that they do not need to produce 25 main dishes to find one that appeals to everyone, and are far better served carefully selecting a few that they do really well...and then spending the time perfecting them. Red Ox appears to have avoided this fault quite handily.
Cakes and I both had a hard time choosing. Everything on the menu sounded so good. Although we tend not to order starters in addition to mains, we couldn't help it once we saw the menu. Cakes had the grilled scallops, chive infused herb salad with carrot butter sauce and crisp potato chips. What appeared on his plate were five perfectly seared and brown scallops in just the right amount of sauce and some interesting accoutrements. He ate them so fast I didn't get a chance to try any, so you'll have to take his word for it that they were marvellous. I chose the warm goats cheese salad with cranberries and almonds. It was certainly delicious, if not necessarily challenging, with a generous round of breaded and fried goats cheese perched on top of baby spinach and topped with a great tangy port dressing.
For the main course, Cakes had the Marinated duck breast with Moroccan carrot sauce, house gnocchi, spaghetti squash gratin (again) and zesty caponata which came presented in a nifty looking, but not really ergonomically designed bowl which was a bit difficult to eat out of gracefully. The sides were lovely - particularly the caponata (a kind of salsa), which appeared to have some black olive in it. The gnocchi looked home made and the duck was gorgeous, although medium rare, which is apparently the thing to do with duck these days, although I must admit it still makes me a little nervous.
I had the saddle of rabbit stuffed with wild mushrooms on top of spaetzle and with a confusing side of edamame beans mixed with green beans and a couple of cooked carrots. All the veggies were cooked perfectly, but I thought the combination a bit odd and perhaps it suffered a little from the most deplorable (in my book anyway) condition I commonly refer to as "doesn't know quite what it wants to be". The rabbit was good, although my favourite part of it was the sauce and the mushroom stuffing. I was hoping for something a little more spectacular quite frankly, and the rabbit, although physically interesting, was not overly exciting in the taste or texture departments and perhaps a little dry.
Our dessert was definitely the highlight of the meal. We had the warm chocolate cake to share and the chocolarte sauce used was clearly made of little morte than melted chocolate and cream - which is the only way chocolate sauce should be made in my opinion. None of this Hershey's Syrup for me. Or for the Red Ox Inn, it would seem.
In all our bill for two starters, two mains, one desert and a half carafe of reasonably good shiraz was in the neighbourhood of $115, which is not outrageous. I don't think I'd go there palnning to spend as much again as it's not worth $115 in my opinion, but I'd certainly go there for a main and shared dessert - which would have run us more like $70. Will we go back again? Probably, but more for the atmosphere and stellar service than the food. Don't get me wrong. The food is quite good by Edmonton standards, and perhaps we didn't choose the right things to order, but it just wasn't quite as good as I'd been lead to believe by all the raves I've heard about it. It does have the aspect of a place run by people who love food - which is the chief requirement in a good restaurant - but maybe they need to shake up their game a little....
Rating:
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Ratings Key:
1 Star - Horrific in every way
2 Stars - Simply awful
3 Stars - Average on a good day
4 Stars - Better than average, but only just
5 Stars - Pretty good, I’d go back
6 Stars - Yum, give me more!
7 Stars - Exceptional. outstanding. bliss
What a great review! I would of opted for the rabbit as well, sounds divine.
~Dianka
http://na-zdravi.blogspot.com/
Posted by: Dianka | May 02, 2006 at 10:51 AM