Chef Susur Lee’s restaurant Lee is incredible!

Website: http://www.susur.com/lee/
Address: 601 King St. W, Toronto ON
When I visited: Sept. 2014, dinner
Rating: $$$$, 5

Having been to Luckee and Bent this year, Lee also hit another high note with me. It’s been a few weeks since my visit and my memories live on. It was the best meal I had so far this year! That’s a bold statement, given that I have had tons of delicious eats.

I visited late September and my husband and I lucked out with summer weather and King St. was buzzin’! The beautiful bar was eye-catching as we walked into the restaurant. We also lucked out with Chef Lee in-the-house greeting customers and making sure that business was running smoothly.

I knew that the cocktails at Lee were pricey (average of $18 for a drink!) but it was our anniversary and had to order the drink special appropriately called “double happiness” made with a beer and liqueur (sorry, that’s all I remember). I also added a Kirin Ichiban beer to complement my meal.

The servers were very helpful in providing recommendations and suggestions. They mentioned that the plates were best for sharing and choosing about 4-5 dishes would be an appropriate amount for us. We did just that and were stuffed!

With the dark lighting, I do apologize for the quality of my photos.

We started off with Chef Lee’s famous 19 ingredient Singaporean slaw (vegetarian). This was my husband’s first time trying the slaw and he understood what the hype was about. At $22, this was a great deal! This salad had it all; texture, height, lightness and flavour…and did I mention 19 ingredients including jicama and crispy taro?

Our next dish was the black pepper charred tuna sashimi and spicy tartare with soya bean, tomato sauce and lotus chips. I loved the strong bold peppercorn crust which gave a nice contrast to the delicate center.

 

Moving on a heavier meaty dish, we had the Korean style marinated striploin (8 oz US prime), garlic mushrooms, roasted pear, blue cheese and dill sauce and arugula. The creamy sauce was a nice touch with the seared steak.

And my favourite dish of the night was the special which was the duck breast on duck confit with foie gras, yuzu puree and various sauces. It was worth the wait to get the dish! The duck confit was extremely tender and flavourful without being overly salty. The variety of sauces including the cherry sauce made the dish fun to eat as we dipped each piece of meat into each of them. This dish blew me away!

And to end the meal, we had French and Chinese tong yuen of warm sweet rice dumplings with a warm chocolate centre, topped with strawberries with a personalized greeting on the plate! I loved it. The best part of our dessert experience was having our server sing a beautiful love song to us. I didn’t know the song but he could be casted in the next Broadway musical!

Overall:

The food was phenomenal and the restaurant made for a perfect celebration spot. Lee should be everyone’s list of restaurants they MUST visit!