Dining at Brockton General, where virtually everything is local including the house-made vinegar, is an experience so unique that I can hardly describe it, and I can blab about anything.
Officially, Brockton General is billed as a snack bar that transforms into a little foodie mecca from Thursday night until Saturday.
From the sparse and folksy interior I was guessing I was in a small country store somewhere in rural Ontario — think spindly back chairs, copper pots and old photos on the exposed brick walls and a mishmash of furniture.
This was no massive opening with big designer budgets and a massive publicity machine. But that hasn’t stopped the two first-time owners, Pam Thomson and Brie Read. Plunking chef Guy Rawlings (ex-Cowbell) in the kitchen was the first of many bold moves for the fledgling restaurateurs.
The menu is posted on a butcher paper roll hanging on the wall, and only a small printed menu with bar nibblies comes to the table.
Once the owner/server comes to the table and explains the menu, we say, “yes.” There are two appetizers and three main courses and one dessert.
We can polish that off in no time.
The white bean mash ($4), from the bar menu, comes warm, oozing with olive oil ( a small exception to the local) and garlic and delightful texture.The potted animal ($7) in a small mason jar is mutton rillettes, which is surprisingly delicate on the nose but a bit fatty.
Radish and turnip salad — hurray for Ontario in December — is a gorgeous rainbow of colours with a great contrast of spicy and tart flavours ($8). Georgian Bay whitefish and potato salad ($9) is simple with the right amount of smoke on the fish and a generous horseradish kick.
The maltagliati ($16), Italian for badly cut pasta, is very … beige. It is a small portion but nice Sicilian notes of cinnamon, raisins, anchovies and walnuts.
The fried bread and celeriac purée is a dish that doesn’t feel like a main ($15) but has perfectly fried bread sticks, with crisp raw turnip slices and feathery-thin cured pancetta and a raw egg yolk all laid on a silky bed of celeriac purée.
We drag the fried bread through the purée and dip in the egg until the plate is clean, but it still seems bizarre.
House-made sausage with Ontario white kidney beans ($15) is on more familiar ground, with spicy beans cooked until plump and raw crunchy carrot slices soaked in apple cider vinegar provide good backdrop to juicy sausage.
We share the homespun square maple cake slice ($6) with carrot cream as the ramshackle environs bar crowd begins to arrive.
Brockton General is hard not to like. It is unorthodox. The space is tiny. The menu is limited because they make everything from scratch with what the co-op has available.
There wasn’t a single green thing on a plate, but we didn’t care.
The restaurant is furthering this movement of young eager chefs, sharing their obsession with all things Ontario, and that’s a good thing.
Toronto, believe the hype. Sorry guys, you just got busier.