- You are in a sit-down restaurant, not a garden party. The preparation is different so likely what you'll get will differ in various ways from this review. Like rotisserie chicken that'd been kept warm for 20 minutes because everyone wanted cuts from the steak instead.
- Food and three drinks were free. Freebies typically tilt reviews, though I'd like to think I'm gonna give you a straight-up honest opinion and tips that aren't too contaminated.
H2 Rotisserie is more than just the food, however. There's really good evening ambiance here. The interior space is beautiful but until fall and winter, the outdoor space has great potential, especially as a romantic venue. In particular:
On to the food! A couple of interesting points:
- Live music every night and during weekend brunch.
- Swimming pool nearby.
- Roasting marshmallows is a possibility at their somewhat secluded away-from-the-restaurant gazebos that have enough couch seating for a modestly sized private party, and a fire pit with open fire you can hover marshmallows over. Apparently enough people commented on the possibility that the hotel and restaurant made it happen.
On to the food! A couple of interesting points:
- For their meat-and-cheese spread, they had basically burnt toast. Not just one or two burnt pieces -- almost every piece had significant charring, though not always evenly. It was also possible to pick a fairly un-burnt piece but you had to really scrounge for it. Because of that I was inclined to think it was actually deliberate. It didn't do anything for me, but if the same happens to you and you discover it's a plus, I'd love it if you shared your experience with a comment here.
- They make their own honey! The beehives are somewhat tucked away, but there's a footpath that goes by the currently modest stable of three hives. Since the honey is made from local flowers, it's supposedly good for you if you have local seasonal allergies.
Beef Carpaccio - hand sliced paper thin certified angus beef tenderloin, barnston island micro arugula, truffle oil, maldon salt, parmesan
- Predominant flavour of the piece I got was parmesan. It's possible that divvying it up into singles for catering may have tampered with the balance.
- If you do get it served to you as we did (remember, we had a catered-garden-party setup, not a sit-down-restaurant setup) on a thin toasted baguette slice, DO NOT pop it into your mouth like that. You'll taste too much bread. Instead, peel it off and maybe scrape off the dollop of sauce underneath that they used to glue it to the bread. That way you'll have a better chance of savouring the meat.
Pinch Me... West Coast Crab Cake - stuffed with crab meat and pan seared, served with lemon wedge and herb and pickled shallot mayo
- We got crab cake samples each slightly larger than a two-bite brownie, or roughly the size of one of those supermarket scallop cakes.
- Tasted like ginger. Could not locate crab flavour after trying it twice during the night (so as hopefully to get it from different batches, in case there was an off batch). Dunno what happened here as the interior looked pretty promising. Maybe using larger chunks of crab meat might help, though I can see how that could result in fall-apart crab cakes since they had to be made mini for catering.
Rotisserie Chicken - Maple Hills Farm Signature House Rotisserie Chicken
- Their chicken was apparently cooked inside, chopped up, then brought outside where a chef tended them in a skillet and with pats of butter. I don't think I got it too long after it came out.
- I went straight for breast meat to check it out. Yup, dry. The chicken might be free-range happy chicken with blah blah blah special features, but bottom line for the consumer is the breast meat is so dry you really need some kind of liquid to choke down two tablespoons of it.
- I'm not saying it's easy to get tender and moist breast meat. It's not. But if dry white meat bugs you, I'd get more intel on it first before committing to a half chicken or whole chicken from the menu. It's hard to dry out dark meat (legs and thigh) on a chicken, so if you get that quarter of a chicken you're probably safe.
Certified Angus Beef Tomahawk - raised without antibiotics or added hormones, all steaks served are aged a minimum of 28 days, served with truffle potato purée, asparagus, roasted tomato, trio of mustards and sea salts
- The tomahawk cuts we got were seared inside on the grill and obviously still raw / very rare when it came to the outdoor grill. There, in a buttered skillet a chef finished cooking slices.
- They did very nicely here -- very juicy, very tender. Good flavour plus good grill marks and grill flavour. I also asked for a bit of the "toughest cut" on that tomahawk and it was like well-done and not dried up jerky. Looks promising that they know what they are doing here with their steaks.
- Red wine sauce available, but not necessary for me and a bit distracting from the beef flavour actually. But if you're working with a whole steak, you might definitely want to break up your flavour bites with some sauce now and again. I wouldn't do my entire steak with sauce though.
- Comes with various mustards and salts. Go easy on these. Especially the salts. You might think you need more smoky salt to get smoky flavour and you're right, but you'll also be over-salting it horribly.
Potato Crisps - check first but it's probably the "House Fried Potato Chips" on the Lounge Menu "Light Bites"
- Unevenly dusted with the same rub as their rotisserie chicken. Don't worry too much about that as the thickly dusted ones were not unpalatably salty. The rub really just adds flavour without wildly salting it.
- Not too salty and not greasy. In fact, I wouldn't call them salty chips at all. Really, really decent. Hope you get a good heaping portion for $10 though!
- We got little bite-sized cheesecakes that were rich enough you really want to eat this in 3/4 tablespoon forkfuls and slowly savor it. This small portion was more than enough. Hopefully you get a full slice for the dinner menu's $9 though! -- Buy to share!
- Eat the popcorn first so you don't smush it through the cheesecake and make an ugly mess. Not sure about everyone else's but that big popcorn chunk on mine came off easily in one bite-sized lump. No longer crispy sadly (probably due to the caramel sauce)
- The cheesecake portion is creamy and really decent. I personally found the caramel made this dessert portion we got too sweet.
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