We awoke this morning to a light dusting of snow, not enough to shovel (yay!) but very pretty with the sun shining on it and making it sparkle like diamond dust!
We’ve been good. No Really, we have been. We’ve been eating healthily, not imbibing and some of us have been exercising (well, I have an excuse, my darn gym was closed this week! 😦 ) But the first week back is always a little tricky, it could be crazy busy or dead. Guess what it was for me? Yup, on Tuesday I landed with both feet running! I even had to call in our trusty freelancer (Jay). So as a ‘reward’ we decided to continue our new restaurant exploration series and try La Forchetta in Little Italy. Little Italy on College (we have Little Italy’s and this one is more or less the one people think of) is not too far from our home but decidedly not a good public transit local from our home, so we drove.
Because I am trying to detach some of the ‘goodness’ that I acquired during the holidays, I decided to have only one appetizer (generally, I’ll have two, or JT and I will share one and I’ll have another as my main; it’s easier to keep things in check and there is usually no risk of over eating!)
If only they didn’t bring the home-made bread drenched in a wonderfully robust (peppery) EVOO, rosemary and sea salt! That’s where ‘the plan’ fell through! (Not to be confused with “the plane, the plane“). I had three delicious slices (I chose the smallest ones :-)!)
La Forchetta (pronounced La Fork-etta in Italian, meaning the fork!) is right in the middle of Little Italy; and the hood has gone wild with their Christmas lights! Usually they have ‘the boot’ in lights on every light standard along college, but the also tightly wrapped each tree along the main street with blue lights and there are three gorgeous angels made of lights along side of Scotia Bank! It really is a sight! The beauty of this Little Italy is that every second store front is a restaurant!
La Forchetta is a relatively small (maybe seats 40-50?), family owned authentic Italian restaurant (great shot, click here). Our very nice waitress said it’s been open for 15 years and everything they serve is house made; that bread was seriously delicious! It is dimly lit with very nice contemporary chandeliers and there is a real candle on every table. It has windows across the front, a mirrored side wall (it may have been a smoked mirror) and a small bar at the back. The kitchen is not quite an open kitchen at the back, it has a medium sized opening so you can see the action should you choose (even the kitchen’s lighting is subdued so that there isn’t a rush of fluorescent streaming in). There are two Green P public parking lots near by and there is street parking if you’re lucky enough!)
When we got there at 7:30 and it wasn’t full but as the evening progressed it got a great vibe with more people. The young one’s started coming in around 9ish! We reserved through Open Table and they actually had a table “reserved” for us! Even though we only had ‘two’ courses our waitress timed our food perfectly, we didn’t finish until after 9:30. We tried walking around a bit, but the wind had picked up and a cold front was definitely on the horizon.
JT ordered the Caesar salad; it was chopped Romain lettuce, with a small bit of crispy fried prosciutto and lots of finely grated Parmesan and a few house made croutons. The dressing was perfect, just the right creaminess with a hint of the anchovy and a nice splash of lemon juice. It was really delicious (although, if I had to complain about something it would have been that the romain was cut into too small bits). I ordered the grilled calamari with caper berries and grilled lemon and green zucchini with a chipotle mango coulis (very delicious) and it was a decent portion for my dinner. JT ordered the slightly unorthodox sweet potato gnocchi with Gorgonzola sauce; it was the perfect combination of Gorgonzola and cream, it had just the right amount of bite! JT said it was one of the best he’s ever had. I think this restaurant is a keeper! There were several things on the appetizer menu that I could and would order for example the goats cheese filled portobello cap, or the Caprese (but not in the winter!). They also had several wines for less than $50 a bottle and their half litre was reasonably priced too!
Overall rating La Forchetta (in my opinion): Decor 4/5 (great lighting), service 4/5, food 4/5, Value 4/5, Noise: 4/5 (1 being very noisy, and 5 being very quiet).
Disclaimer: We purchased our meal for full price and my opinions just that, my opinions.
Kitcheninspirations 