Normally @Kerry Beal and I go out to lunch together on Wednesday but Wednesday being Christmas day we postponed it until today. But today is boxing day which is a holiday in Canada and many of the places we frequent were close today.
But Kerry spotted The French in Hamilton which sounded very interesting and was definitely open today.
There were quite a number of items on the lunch menu that appealed.
However, when we arrived and were offered menus they were very different from what we had seen online. We later learned that during the holidays they offer only a brunch menu.
The first table we were offered was somewhat smaller than a round bar tray. Kerry wisely asked if we could please have something just a little larger. We were given what I suppose is a banquette. Not a bit comfortable and extremely difficult to get into if you were slightly bigger than a four-year-old.
I knew Kerry was extremely unhappy and suggested that perhaps we should go find somewhere else but she had already paid $10.50 to park.
There really wasn’t a lot on the menu that called out to either one of us. And some things seemed egregious.
Lamb porchetta? I thought perhaps I misunderstood the meaning of the word so I looked it up when we got home.
por·chet·ta
noun
- (in Italian cooking) suckling pig that has been boned, seasoned with garlic and herbs, and roasted, typically sliced and served as a filling in sandwiches. Oxford Dictionary.
Tostado rancheros in a French bistro? Duck waffles? It all sounded a little spaced out.
But we were there and we had paid for parking so we decided to try and make the best of a bad situation.
Kerry did ask if it was possible to order from the normal lunch menu but that was nixed by our server.
so we decided to order two entrées and share them. Lamb so rarely appears on menus that even if they were going to call it pork I wanted it. steak and eggs can really be wrong can it?
Yep it can. The menu describes it as including two sunny side eggs. Kerry asked if one egg could be ”over lightly”. I don’t know how many times she’s stressed that only one egg should be over lightly because I liked my eggs just the way they came.
nothing at all like “over easy” on this egg.
nor this! The salad was fresh but the dressing was vapid.
The lamb burger which was definitely lamby not porky and the fries which were not bad. That sauce on the side though we are pretty sure came from a bottle. It was nothing like an aïoli.
At no time will we asked if we would like something to drink. The service simply poured tapwater for both of us.
But we always manage to find something amusing no matter how bad things get.
We could see things happening out of a window. There were very expensive movie type cameras being utilized and people dressed in outfits that were inappropriate for the end of December in Ontario. At first Kerry thought perhaps it was a movie being filmed there. But everyone who passed by that window seem to be carrying a blanket or had a blanket wrapped around them. Eventually, with the help of Google, Kerry determined that we were at the finishing point of some kind of marathon. The cameras were probably local news crews.
And there was this which caught my eye as Kerry parked the car so I asked her to grab a photograph.
