LeTrou Normand Restaurant

Every year Toronto hosts its annual Summer and Winterlicious festivals where people can take advantage of great food for a fraction of the price. Most restaurants will participate in the event where they would offer one a three course meal for about $35-$45 per meal.  Taking advantage of this deal, we decided to venture into Yorkville, which is the posh part of Toronto, and give LeTrou Normand Restaurant a shot. 

We made reservations for this restaurant and were given our seats right away.  It was about 8:00pm on a weeknight and truthfully, one really didn’t need any reservations at all as the place was only ¼ full.  Their wall of fame showcased many celebrities who had previously eaten at this place before so I highly doubt this place was hardly bad at all. 

Pate de Gibier

Scanning their Summerlicious menu, there were about 3 starters, 6 appetizers and 3 deserts to choose from.  This evening we all went with their Pate de Gibier for starters.  For the entrees we had the Veal Medallion with Calvodos Sauce, Baked Salmon in Lobster Cream Sauce and Medallion Beef Tenderloin with Bordelaise Sauce.  For Desert, we had the Dark Chocolate desert and the Apple Tart.  We also had a bottle of red wine to share amongst the four of us. 

Veal Medallion with Calvodos Sauce

Prior to the meals, we were each given a couple pieces of bread to eat.  The waiter came by roughly every ten minutes to make sure our water and wine glasses were always full.  The place however was quite dim (hence the bad photos) and the lights kept flickering throughout the evening. 

Medallion Beef Tenderloin with Bordelaise Sauce

Our pates arrived rather quickly, like within 5 minutes of ordering.  Since it’s summerlicious, I am sure this dish was made well in advanced.  The pate this evening was a combination of pheasant, duck and chicken meat.  I love pate however this pate was simply just average to below average.  It was a huge slab to begin with, and the pate was dry and flaky.  It broke apart when one tried to spread it and with only one piece of toast and a small portion of salad given, many of us ended up eating the pate as is and on its own. 

Baked Salmon in Lobster Cream Sauce

The entrees however fared a little better overall.  I had the Veal Medallion and the meat was very, very soft.  The sauce was good although it would have been better if they had just kicked it up a notch just a little bit more.  There were about three slices of meat and some vegetables on the side.  Presentation wise it looked pretty good.  Overall, I was actually happy with the veal.  The Beef Tenderloin was also pretty good.  The meat was cooked to medium rare and was very soft just liked the veal.  One could not have gone wrong this evening with either the veal or the beef.  The salmon was what impressed me the most.  The lobster cream sauce that they used was delicious and it really enhanced the overall taste of the salmon.  There were also two large pieces of tiger shrimp that came with the dish. All three entrees were pretty impressive this evening. 

Dark Chocolate

The desert dishes were rather disappointing.  The dark chocolate was quite sweet and two of the three dishes looked like a 5 year old had put it together.  It was crumbly, flaky and stacked one on top of another.  The apple tart was actually a mixture of an apple pie with an almond? base crust.  The problem with this dish was that it was overly sweet on top with the apples and surprisingly very bland on the bottom.  It was difficult to cut through the “tart” as the bottom of the crust was very hard.  As a result, one had to eat the sweet part and the bland part separately. 

Apple "Tart"Pie

In the end, the appetizers and the deserts were somewhat disappointing.  The entrees were magnificent, the meats were perfectly cooked and the fish was amazing.  Personally I think I was expecting near perfection especially with this restaurant located right in the heart of Toronto. Will I try it again?  It’s hard to say.  Overall I give it a 3 out of 5 with a 4.5 on the entrees and 1.5 on the deserts and appetizers. 

LeTrou Normand Restaurant

90 Yorkville Avenue

Toronto, Ontario

416 967 5956