where jess ate

A couple weeks ago, I had the pleasure of dining at Fabbrica for a dinner hosted by Yvonne Tsui (@th3hungrycat) called “Legs and Tie” (#LegsAndTie).

Myself and 8 of Yvonne’s other foodie friends joined her at the 150-seat restaurant located at the Shops at Don Mills. Fabbrica serves up authentic Italian fare and is one of the several restaurants owned by Mark McEwan (@Chef_MarkMcEwan). The man behind the reigns at this restaurant though is executive chef Rob LeClair – we were definitely in good hands!

Several weeks earlier, Yvonne joined Chef Rob in the Fabbrica kitchen to create a dish using organic chickens from Yorkshire Valley Farms (@YVForganic).

But before we got to the chicken dish, we were treated to a couple appetizers.  We started off with a delicious Salumi Board. I’m a sucker for cured meats and was delighted to see we were starting with this.

We were also served some Fried Smelts which were fried to perfection. They weren’t at all greasy and the batter had a nice lightness to it. The fish were moist on the inside and when dipped in a bit of the aioli it came with, it made for one delicious bite.

As I mentioned, the meal was centered around a dish using an organic Yorkshire Valley Farm chicken. We were all eager to see what Chef Rob had in store for us and once the dish was placed in front of me, I had to resist taking a bite out of it before snapping a few photos.

The Stuffed Chicken consisted of half a deboned chicken, stuffed with provolone, parmigiannao and herbs. The chicken was served with fregola (similar to Israeli couscous) and a fried zucchini blossom which had been stuffed with cheese.

There was a lot going on in the dish and I loved every component of it. I rarely order chicken at restaurants but this was incredible – the meat was wonderfully moist and packed full of flavour. Chef Rob mentioned that he was so pleased with the dish that he may put it on their permanent menu. So, look out for it!

To end off the meal, we had the Pavlova – baked Italian meringue, lemon curd, passion fruit and strawberries. The meringue had a fragile eggshell-like exterior and was airy on the inside. I particularly enjoyed the passion fruit and strawberries that it was paired with. Given that it was 40+ degrees outside, this was a nice, light dessert to finish with.

Thank you to Yvonne , Branding and Buzzing (@brandandbuzz) and Yorkshire Valley Farms for hosting a fantastic dinner – great food and great company!