Cherry Lounge

My mother is in town for the stompede this weekend (and to visit her one and only son) and she took Shannon and I out for dinner. The first time I went to the Cherry Lounge was the most awful dining experience I've ever had in my life. It was for lunch and I ordered a chicken curry wrap with half orders of each soup — gin tomato and roasted garlic — neither which sounded particularly appetizing. The gin tomato soup tasted like a tomato martini, the roasted garlic soup almost instantly made my stomach turn and the chicken curry wrap was just overcooked white rice with a whole mess of cilantro and a little bit of shredded chicken. I think someone forgot the curry part of the curry and since, as we all know, I'm not particularly fond of cilantro, I hated it.

I decided to give it another chance. I thought only the drinks were overpriced ( for a cocktail?) but it seems I'd forgotten that the menu was as well. + basic entrees and + appetizers. Shannon absolutely hated it. The whole time we were sitting there she kept saying how pretentious this and that was. Instead of sugar for coffee they had stir sticks with crystalized sugar and so on. The whole decor and atmosphere is pretty much summed up as being pretentious. The funny part is that it's located between a KFC and Taco Time, so it doesn't exactly have big city allure.

We didn't order anything to start, but we were given toasted bread with 3 kinds of butter for an appetizer. Regular old butter, garlic butter and a curry saffron butter. I thought the curry butter was perfect for the palette. It really hit hard as soon as it hit your mouth, but then somehow vanished altogether by the time you were done chewing. Toasting the bread is a nice touch to make it seem that much fresher, I suppose.

Shannon ordered a "disassembled" Caesar salad (anchovy, bacon, capers and so forth are on the side instead of mixed in) with morel mushroom Perogies. The perogies were basically empty and topped with a lot of bacon and sour cream. They were good, but the portion was incredibly small and unsatisfying. My mom ordered some sort of linguine dish with scallops and shrimp. The shrimp were extremely overcooked, but I thought the scallops were delicious (I sample everything at a table when I go to a restaurant.) The pasta was sort of cold and sticky.

For my entree I ordered the (terribly photographed) bison tenderloin. At first I thought I was totally skimped on with a tiny 4 oz medallion, but there was a second one underneath. The asparagus was either under or overdone depending on where on the plate it was located, but that was my only complaint. The dish was very good. The meat was perfectly cooked, the sauce was excellent and flavorful and the risotto, although a bit mushier than creamy, was nice and peppery which really complimented the other flavors.

We decided to skip on dessert because everything seemed far too rich for our tastebuds this evening (goat cheese cake, triple chocolate this and that etc.) and also decided not to leave a tip because a 0 bill for 3 people without drinks or appetizers is a bit ridiculous for what we ordered.