Promising start quickly falls apart as entrees arrive

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The Ground Floor didn’t live up to high hopes. (WAYNE.GLOWACKI@FREEPRESS.MB.CA)

Dining Out

The Ground Floor Urban Diner

190 Smith Street, 949-0376

Licensed

Wheelchair access

2 stars out of 5

The Ground Floor (formerly Pastels, but with the same owners) has two entrances, one through the Place Louis Riel hotel, which offers an hour of validated parking, the other directly from St. Mary Avenue, where there's plenty of parking in the evening. But even with two easy ways in, the restaurant was empty when we arrived, early in the evening, and remained empty until we left, a few hours later. Was it the darkness of the decor, dominated (some colourful abstract paintings apart) by mostly browns, blacks, and beige, that had failed to entice other diners? Possibly, and possibly the place is more cheerful during daylight hours, and maybe lunches are OK, but there wasn't much cheer in that night's dinner.

The website promises food that is made from scratch, with local ingredients -- the kind of promise that (despite experiences to the contrary) invariably seduces me and I had come with, if not exactly high hopes, well, at least some hopes. And if I had confined my meal to, say, a certain soup, a certain salad and a certain dessert, I might have left happy. In fact that night's dinner did start out well, with a soup I can only describe as Sino-Jewish, a clear broth with chicken-filled dumplings (called potstickers, but more like wontons, actually) and diminutive and dense but passable matzoh balls, as well as a last minute addition of some separately cooked and still-crunchy veggies ($6). It is listed on the lunch menu only, but available at dinner.

A pretty good start, I thought, and hoped this might turn out to be a place where downtown workers could have an early dinner of "comfort food" (so described by the restaurant). I remained optimistic through a Greek salad of fresh greens with good olives and plenty of feta ($7, but included with the entrees). True, the base of our bruschetta tasted more like a soft, pappy bun (untoasted, at that) than the promised baguette, and the tomatoes in the mix were anemic, but the topping was actually more than the sum of its parts, and quite tasty ($6).

But made from scratch doesn't necessarily mean made to order, a fact first suggested by the very appearance of two entrees. Both the barbecued ribs and pork chop had dry, matte surfaces, looking as though they'd been over-heated -- reheated, almost certainly -- and/or spent time under a heat lamp. Incomprehensible, in an empty restaurant, with all the time in the world to cook them to order, leading to the suspicion that whoever was in charge of the kitchen had gone home much earlier, leaving the reheaters in charge.

The evidence of our eyes was confirmed by our taste buds. The double-cut pork chop was indeed massive. but the wild rice and sun-dried cherries filling, which was actually pretty nice, was a mere smidgen that had barely penetrated the chop, and the meat itself was juiceless and tasteless ($18).

The barbecue sauce, which had been reduced during the reheating to a tomato paste intensity, coated ribs that were as dry and flavourless as the pork chop ($20).

If there was no flavour in the chop or ribs, there was far too much flavour in the pickerel fillet, but the wrong kind. It was fishy, but there was something beyond mere fishiness, an odd taste that I couldn't identify, and I wasn't going to tempt fate by eating more than just a mouthful or two. Nor was a $5.70 deduction from the bill proper compensation for an uneaten $19 entree. There was also an odd flavour in an order of meat loaf, which left a lingering unpleasantness in the mouth ($16).

The sides actually did need reheating, but didn't get it. Hard, steamed cauliflower and carrots were stone cold. So were mashed potatoes, and so was the congealed dark brown gravy they came with. A baked potato wasn't cold, but had a greyish interior and no crunch to the skin.

Dinner did end well with a deliciously rich layered chocolate cake. We might also have liked the individual apple pie if the crust hadn't been nuked to flab ($5 each). Service was attentive but verging on the overly familiar, and a tad pushy about the alcohol. Some simple basic training was also needed -- despite all the attentiveness empty glasses and plates from previous courses remained on the table throughout the meal.

There was also a tacky practice that I didn't know about until I got the bill. Did I want gravy with my mashed potatoes, I was asked, and I said OK, but on the side ---- a word that apparently is taken literally here since it appeared on the bill (but not the menu) as a side, for $3. And that $5 apple pie, which we'd ordered without any specifications, came a la mode, for an extra $2, bringing the total to $7. Which would have bought some great pies in a lot of other places. Which probably wouldn't have been nuked.

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Where to have Christmas dinner? is the question that comes up invariably at this time of year, and the answers never change. As usual, most of the choices are hotel buffets, among them The Fort Garry at $75; the Fairmont at $55; the Current at $59; and the Charterhouse at $34.

And, as usual, the only served-at-table dinner I found is at Bobbie's, 754 St. Mary's Road, where the regular menu (with most entrees under $20) will be offered, with the addition of a turkey dinner.

marion.warhaft@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition December 10, 2010 D7