Summerlicious Win.
This past Saturday I joined my four closest lady-friends for a birthday dinner at Caju. (922 Queen West) I went in with no expectations and came out pleasantly surprised and well-fed. The menu is Brazilian with a bit of a Caribbean and Portuguese twist (Caju is the Portuguese word for Cashew)
The atmosphere was friendly and slow-paced. Two of us showed up 15 minutes early (gasp) for our 7pm reservation, and they seated us right away. The other three arrived at various times and there was no rush or complaint from the staff. Once we had all settled in, we ordered a round of Caipirinha, which is a national cocktail of Brazil made with Cachaca (similar to Rum), sugar and lime. We debated ordering off the regular menu, but the Summerlicious menu was too good to pass up for $25.
I started with the sweet pepper, tomato, ginger, and coconut milk soup, which was to die for. The flavour and texture was perfect and left me wanting more. Others at the table tried the cold gazpacho soup, which received good reviews, but was apparently a bit “tart.”
For the mains, three of us went with the fish and shrimp saffron rice (Paella style) which was another hit. I didn’t ask what the fish was, but we agreed that it tasted a lot like Tilapia or something similar. Regardless, it was cooked to perfection, as was the shrimp. The other options were house-made cassava gnocchi with rapini, heart of palm and cherry tomatoes with parmesan (which looked very fresh and light – a feat for gnocchi) and grilled pork tenderloin and choriço with tomato salsa, cassava chips and balsamic drizzle (looked OK was a bit on the dry side).
Dessert was my only disappointment. I ordered the lemon square thinking it would be something fresh and delicious to end the meal, but it ended up being a bit blah and dry. The passion fruit mousse (which my friend let me sample) was amazing and left me wishing I had chosen differently. The third dessert option was dark chocolate fondant (which I also sampled) and that was light and smooth in texture and insanely rich. A chocolate-lover’s dream.
We ended up spending around 3 hours dining, which is pretty nice for a Summerlicious meal, where in quite a few cases I have been rushed out at a ridiculous pace. My one complaint about Caju would be that the noise level was intense – we could barely talk over all the other voices. I’m fairly certain that the sleek interior design was causing all the noise to bounce around endlessly. The place could use some fabric panels to absorb some of that noise. Oh, and one other pet peeve – they added an auto grat of 17% to the bill, which I just find a bit presumptuous for a table of 5 people, and assume it was because we ordered from the Summerlicious menu. Since we enjoyed the experience, it didn’t really bother us, but I wasn’t too impressed with that detail.
Overall, I enjoyed the experience and the food. It’s worth checking out at least once and I may be back for another Caipirinha soon.