Joey Bravo's Ristorante

Tonight my wife, daughter and I were treated for a nice evening at Joey Bravo's Ristorante.  This restaurant has a family style restaurant on one side of the building and a bar on the other side.  We carried the car seat in tonight as there was plenty of room.  Once we were seated, we were given our menus.  The menu provided us a variety of appetizers, entrees and dessert.  We decided to order individual dishes but that we would split some portions of the meal. 

For appetizers, we order a couple of clam chowders, bruschetta and fried calamari.  For entrees, we each ordered something different.  I had the Baked Atlantic Salmon, my wife chose the linguine pescatore rosso, my friends ordered the Joey's Veal and fusilli fresco. 

Calamari Fritti

Bruschetta

Clam Chowder

Minestrone

Originally my friend had ordered a cream of broccoli however it was sold out so they gave us a clam chowder instead.  The texture was nice, not too creamy and moderately thick.  The taste was very good however there were fewer pieces of potatoes and a few extra pieces of celery.  Otherwise it was good. 

The bruschetta and calamari arrived next.  The bruschetta was a little dry.  There was no garlic butter on the bread but the tomatoes on top were freshly cut.  It was so-so at best.  The calamari however was really good.  Very tasty and not overly breaded.  The beauty of this dish was that there was also a salad with vinegarette dressing on the bottom.  It was the first time I had it this way but it may the dish less "heavy" and fatty tasting. Although there was probably less calamari as a result, the contrast was delightful. 

Our entrees arrived next.  The salmon was beautiful grilled.  The dish also had one piece of broccoli, 1 slice of buttered carrot, 3 pieces of potatoes, 1 piece of cauliflower, 1 slice of cucumber and one large piece of red pepper.  The salmon was slightly crunchy on the outside and very soft on the inside.  Slightly salty but otherwise no problems at all.  My wife say her shrimp linguine was very nice as well.  The shrimp and clams were perfectly cooked and the pasta was not too heavy at all.  My friend loved his fusilli fresco.  He wolfed it down in 5 minutes.  He said it was one of the best meals he had in quite some time.  Joey's Veal was also very filling.  There were 5 pieces of veal along side the pasta.  My friend was only able to finish half of it as it was very filling.  She said it was not very creamy and tasted very good.  Overall entrees were well done.

Baked Atlantic Salmon

Joey's Veal

Fusilli Fresco

Linguine Pescatore Rosso

We ordered 3 desserts however the one I really wanted to try, the apple pie with rum sauce, was out of order.  It was the second thing off the menu that was sold out.  They gave us an extra 2 pieces of tiramisu cakes to make up the missing apple pie.  We also order a caramel brulee.  The tiramisu cake was slightly heavy on the alcohol and light but it sat well in the mouth.  The creme caramel was okay.  There wasn't anything special to it, tasting like a Chinese egg tart at best. It was soft but not overly sweet.

Tiramisu

Creme Caramel

Other than being slightly over dimmed with the lights, the decor was quite nice and peaceful feeling.  Although there was a bar on the other side of the restaurant it was hardly noticeable and it did not disturb our dinner.  Since we were treated, we were unaware of the bill but based on my calculation it was probably around the two hundred dollar mark for 5 people.  If the restaurant did not have 2 orders on its menu as sold out it probably would have gotten higher marks.  As it stands, I would give it a 4 out of 5.

Joey Bravo's Ristorante.
4505 Sheppard Ave.
Scarborough, Ontario