I absolutely love peking duck (being Asian and all) and who doesn't like pizza?
When I heard that The Red Tomato combined two of my favorite things...I was super happy to be invited to go try them out!
The Red Tomato is located on King Street West as a sister restaurant of Fred's Not Here.
I was invited to their #PieTunes event back in early September where they had a media event to showcase their pizzas on the menu. It was a pretty busy night, but thank goodness I sat at the bar. I had a steady flow of food and drinks, so that was a plus.
After that event, I was invited back for a full dining experience with a couple other bloggers. We weren't given much guidance but we just assumed that we could order whatever we wanted from the menu, and that's what we did :)
We started off with three appetizers. The above picture is their Salad Caprese, which is fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, basil, and fire roasted peppers with drizzles of EVOO. This was good! I had no complaints.
We heard the crispy coconut shrimps with thai dipping sauce was a huge hit, so we decided to try it. I didn't find it to be anything special, but it was good. I just don't know why the dish came with 4 little leaves either. Was it supposed to come with a salad or was that for decoration? Either way, I thought it was weird on the plate.
The third appetizer we decided on were a bowl of steamed clams and chorizo with garlic and white wine. I really enjoyed the chorizo with the clams, when I could find one! A lot of the shells were empty (as you can see in the picture). The sauce was pretty bland too. I think mussels in marinara sauce would have been a better hit, as mussels themselves are larger and there is also more flavour in the marinara sauce. But to each their own!
And then our mains started arriving. We ordered two pastas to share.
Meatball gnocchi with sausage and angus beef meatballs in marinara sauce
I liked the gnocchi and the fact that the meatballs were massive! They were soft and tender, but the sauce was just typical tomato sauce.
I liked the gnocchi and the fact that the meatballs were massive! They were soft and tender, but the sauce was just typical tomato sauce.
Mushroom agnolotti with mushroom truffle butter sauce
But I think this was a winner in my book. Although it was way too oily (everything was basically drowning in the oil, as you can see from the picture), I enjoyed the mushroom agnolotti.
One of the pizzas that I didn't get to try at #PieTunes was the garlic shrimp pizza, so we decided to order it. This was a garlic shrimps, fresh mozzarella and walnut pesto pizza. Okay this was way too oily, which made the crust was very soggy. It wouldn't hold up and all my shrimps rolled off the pizza. It was a sad little tumble down to my plate.
But this Peking Duck Pizza is my absolute favourite. Roasted duck breast, enoki and shitaki mushrooms, fresh mozzarella, hoisin drizzle with green onions, and crispy duck crackling... I had it at the media preview event in September, and already thought it was delicious. The one I had at this dinner was even better!! The crust was a great amount of crispy, and the duck crackling was great with the sauce and the roasted duck breast. A must order!
And then it was dessert time! They had a pretty extensive (but simple) dessert menu, including some dessert alcoholic beverages. We ordered four to share between all of us.
Bourbon Pecan Pie
Duo Cheese Cake
Espresso Crème Brûlée (above), and
Belgian Double Chocolate Mousse Cake (below).
How delicious do they look!! My favourite was the double chocolate mousse cake. Although it was really sweet and rich, I loved every bite - given that I could only have max. 5 bites before needing to gulp down a cup of water though.
*This was a complimentary dinner; however, please note that all my opinions made are my own.*
