Friday Lunch from La Prep

Milton Nunes, where are you when we need you?  We were always very fond of Nunes' Le Gourmand under the Bay.  It combined excellent take out food with reasonable prices--perhaps too reasonable for the bottom line.Its space was vacant for almost a year so our hopes soared when  La Prep opened with similar goodies.

The Designated Courier arrived back with an armload of food and a scowl on his face.  He had had to order each item separately. When he asked for a receipt, he discovered he had been given the wrong one. Then things went downhill. Several years ago I went through a period of consuming a lot of hot and sour soup from a small Chinese restaurant in my neighborhood. One particular batch, the last I ever bought, had a particularly smoky flavor. Smoky indeed: at the bottom of the container we discovered a cigarette butt. My first spoonful of the smoked turkey and rice soup gave me the very same taste sensation. The DC said the same thing even though he had never had this experience.  Certainly in these heavily legislated times such a thing would not happen. The "wild rice" looked not only pretty tame but pretty overcooked.

We also sampled two sandwiches and salads. Both were nicely crusted from a press. One was billed a chicken and pesto combination. Distinctly light on the pesto, it would have been fine if it had been named chicken and grilled vegetable or even chicken and ratatouille sandwich. The roast beef sandwich came with cheese and a Creole dressing.  The cheese was unnecessary while the dressing was way too sweet for the rather spongy meat.

While the potato salad looked fine with small, jacketed whole potatoes in a mustard dressing, it needed a jolt of salt and pepper.  Please spare us the blandly industrial coleslaw.

For dessert, we shared an apple crumble tart, a variety which is available at several high end shops.  It was, as always, tasty but would have been even better if warmed.

La Prep is similar to Le Gourmand only in appearance.  We ask again:  Milton Nunes, where are you when we need you?

Price: $21.00 for soup, two sandwiches, two salads and an apple tart.
Location:  The south end of the food court at 2 Bloor East.







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