CHARCUT Roast House
899 Centre St S
Yet another post on CHARCUT. The original "plan" was to check out this new restaurant on Stephen Avenue. I used the word "plan" loosely here because no one believed me when I told them there was a new restaurant. As we strolled by CHARCUT and we decided we wanted some focaccia bread instead. Luckily for us there were still some seats available at the bar. SCORE!
Upon being seated in front of the severed pig heads... I mean, at the food prep counter, we were presented with a sample of... *drum roll*... pig head meat! And some other spicy meat (which is not nearly as interesting. Or disgusting, depending on how you look at it) on a rustic wore out cutting board. That's right. We had pig head. It tasted like ham. Ain't no thang. You're probably never going to look at ham the same way again. You're welcome. ; ) The meat was pretty fatty with pistachio nuts lodged into it. It's almost as if the pig had been killed via a firing squad. Excepts it was pistachios and not bullets. I can feel my arteries clogging up just thinking about it. Shaved into paper thin slices, the meat was served with a grainy mustard dip that was in its own mini cast iron pan. Total baller. Not gonna lie, it was pretty tasty. Very flavourful. Way better than that cooked ham I get Superstore.
Looking at the menu, I was torn between the steak salad and the feature lunch (Tuna melt with mushroom soup, fries and cookies). I love steak anything. But I also love (like LOVE) CHARCUT's focaccia bread. And yeah. You can easily guess which one won -
I can't say that I'm a super huge fan of tuna melts. It's not that I don't like tuna. I like tuna sashimi... tuna in a can... tuna tataki... Tuna with mayo and cheese some how doesn't appeal to me. It sounds heavy. It was very heavy. But I ordered it anyway. Because I love the focaccia bread and mushroom soup. CHARCUT's doing something fancy with their focaccia bread. Last time I had it, it was made with some cheese. This time around, there was some sun dried tomatoes or something. It was neat. Pretty good. But I liked the original (with spices only) and the cheese one better. Just sayin'. The bread is then stuffed with some tuna melt ingredients such as tuna, cheese, mayo and diced pickles. It wasn't quite what I was expecting. The sandwich and fries were a tad to the lukewarm side. The mushroom soup was very creamy and topped with a slice of crostini and an at-one-point-was-crispy strip of bacon.
Heaven.
So tasty. So flavourful. Mmmmm... Mushroom soup. Mystery bag in the back contained two chocolate chip cookies.
And the verdict:
Atmosphere: 8.5 out of 10. Raggedy towel. Rustic yet contemporary decor.
Cost: 9 out of 10. $15 lunch + free pig head meat appetizer.
Food: 7.5 out of 10. Sandwich was lukewarm.
Presentation: 10 out of 10. Fence post turned rustic cutting board plus mini cast iron pan scores a perfect 10 in the presentation department.
Service: 8 out of 10. Decent service. The place was hopping.
Overall: 8 out of 10. -2 points for lukewarm sandwich. It's ok though. I still love CHARCUT : )
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