Clarkstown Kitchen & Bar
94 Beechwood Ave., 613-744-8484, clarkstownkb.com
Open: Monday to Friday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Saturday 5 to 10 p.m., closed Sunday
Prices: Sausage plates $14 to $16, main courses $22 to $26
Access: Steps to entrance
Long before there was Vanier, or for that matter, Eastview, there was the tiny village of Clarkstown. In 1909, it, along with the villages of Janeville and Clandeboye, were amalgamated to become the village of Eastview, which in 1969 became Vanier.
We have the almost two-month-old Clarkstown Kitchen & Bar to thank for the heritage lesson. But that New Edinburgh restaurant has its own back story worth telling too.
Long before there was the Clarkstown Kitchen & Bar, there was El Meson, which for more than two decades served Spanish and Portuguese food in a stately red brick house on Beechwood Avenue under owner Jose Alves. In 2012, Alves retired, and the property was taken over by Andre Cloutier, the young businessman who also has two other eateries on the street. Cloutier recently converted El Meson to Clarkstown.
The chef from El Meson, Tom Moore, remains at Clarkstown, but has been tasked, according to the restaurant’s website, to create dishes based on Cloutier’s “globetrotting travels.” Also, Clarkstown signature items are four made-in-house sausage dishes — Asian-themed pork and chicken links, a lamb sausage plate that’s somewhat Mediterranean, and a stubby, flavoured-with-orange beef offering that comes with spaetzle. We’re not in Iberia anymore, Toto.
That lamb sausage dish ($16), served with smoked wheat berry, golden raisin tabbouleh and beet tzatziki, was the most enjoyable item during my three visits to Clarkstown. The sausage was lean but flavourful, and its light, interesting components, while scattered a little haphazardly, rounded out the dish nicely.
I wish that all of Clarkstown’s food had been as pleasing. For every dish that hit the mark and lived up to an enticing menu description, another one or two stumbled. Simple dishes worked best, while others too often fell short of ambitions. Some items hit certain notes too hard (think overly smoked potatoes or otherwise tasty and tender octopus that was off-puttingly gritty). Others dishes lacked the promised punch (a jerked pork chop that had no jerk flavour or heat, a smoked beef tongue appetizer that wasn’t smoky).
Some of my best bites at Clarkstown were at my first lunch there. In addition to that lamb sausage, there was a thick slab of chicken schnitzel ($15), a little more densely breaded than expected, but otherwise fine.
Chicken schnitzel at Clarkstown Kitchen and Bar
House-made desserts ($8) that afternoon — chocolate mousse with candied walnuts and berry compote, a lemon semifreddo — were OK.
Chocolate mousse at Clarkstown Kitchen and Bar
Lemon semifreddo at Clarkstown Kitchen and Bar
But at later visits, there were dishes that, while appealing on paper, underwhelmed, and the presentation of the food seemed more sloppy.
At dinner, there was the boring beef tongue ($13) and the octopus ($15) that was nicely sauced and would have been very good had there not been that feeling of bits of grit on the meat. (We were told that this was an aspect of the harissa seasoning. To Clarkstown’s credit, we weren’t charged for the dish.)
Octopus a la plancha at Clarkstown Kitchen and bar
Beef tongue at Clarkstown Kitchen and Bar
Striploin steak ($26) was thick and properly cooked, but other items on the plate dragged the dish down. Yucca fries were very bland, slices of king oyster mushrooms were thin and too oily, and the assertive scattering of shallots on top of the meat obscured the marrow butter we had looked forward to savouring.
Steak at Clarkstown Kitchen
The pork chop ($25) was tender, but over-seared, and it needed, if not the promised jerk seasoning, simply some salt. Its potatoes were too smoky.
Clarkstown’s paella ($25) has been carried over from El Meson, says the restaurant’s website. It was chockfull of all right seafood, but the flabby skin on the whole chicken thigh was a turn-off, and the rice, while briny, needed more saffron.
Paella at Clarkstown Kitchen
Desserts included a berry crumble that was more like a tart with a crumble topping. The refrigerated slice had none of the pleasure of warm crumbles elsewhere and its pastry was mushy.
At my last visit, the fish special of seared ling cod for lunch ($17) lacked a skin-side sear and would have made me happier if it had flaked a little more. The topping of chopped apricots was too much for the mild fish, and risotto was underseasoned and overcooked. The beef sausage was quite citrusy, and at $16, it struck us as over-priced.
Ling Cod lunch special at Clarkstown Kitchen and Bar
Beef sausage at Clarkstown Kitchen and Bar
Best that visit was some butternut squash gnocchi with a grilled tomato sauce and a striking mound of arugula ($12).
Butternut squash gnocchi at Clarkstown Kitchen and Bar
Service has been friendly and even folksy, with male staff in golf shirts and jeans bringing a sports-bar look to the prim, Victorian setting of the former El Meson.
There are some good ideas, ambitions and effort at Clarkstown. But it will take some more tweaks to dishes and more precise execution to make meals as appealing at the table as they sound on the menu.
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