11 Aug 2012 15 Comments

A Break-Up Letter

 

Dear Marben,

Let me just start by saying that you’ve been good to me.  Ever since we met last year, I’ve loved you with total reckless abandon, blogging obsessively over you, showing up at your door flush-cheeked an embarrassing three times a week, eager and willing and unconditionally supportive, even if you did make me wait. Our nights were spent languishing over amazing bottles of wine, sweet nothings whispered through greasy burger-stained lips, until the wee hours when I would drift home and dream of your sweet cherry cobbler. Remember that time you gave me empanadas fresh out of the deep-fryer, made by hand only moments before?  Or those summer Sunday pig roasts, my only true place of worship?  And don’t even get me started on your sausage fest. I pined for you. I was loyal. I vowed to see you whenever I had the time, I let you meet my friends, I wore my best for you and spent my money on you, even if it meant uncomfortable conversations with my accountant. That mostly had to do with retail, but I digress. You were it for me, and ever since that first charcuterie plate, I fell for you hard.

But ever since Top Chef Carl Heinrich and Chef Misha left you to pursue other endeavors, you’ve changed.  Gone are the days of elegantly plated comfort food, perfect rabbit rillette, abundant and yet simple seasonal salads, the most epic burger in town. Your once-was buttery pommes anna has now become a flimsy, dry, undercooked travesty. Your precious trout now swims completely engulfed in a bizarre milky potato foam, your lobster and avocado salad now a terrine better suited for a badly catered wedding. I didn’t even want dessert, Marben. And you know how I feel about dessert. It’s right up there with Channing Tatum.

It makes me so sad to tell you that although it’s been a fun year, I think it’s best we part ways. You see, there are just too many culinary fish in the sea in this great city of Toronto, and us actors have short attention spans. To be completely candid, you should know before you hear it from anyone else that I’ve been seeing Scarpetta down the street rather exclusively. He’s Italian, and fiercely passionate in wanting to impress me, so I could be in this for the long haul. I’m so sorry, Marben. I hope you can find your way back to the greatness you once were, because I know you have it in you. I’ll miss your staff, your wild weekend nights (where did the DJ go, by the way?), and that handsome clientele. But I just can’t give you another chance until you get your act together.

In other words, it’s not me. It’s you.

Regrettably, unfaithfully yours,

 

Jewel

by Jewel Staite in Ramblings, Restaurant Reviews