I booked into this Summerlicious event before I went to Vancouver, an inaugural visit to Starfish at 100 Adelaide Street for their $35 prix fixe dinner menu. It’s a good thing I did, too, since I started my seafood kick in Vancouver and I was still craving it after I arrived home. There’s something very summer about seafood.

What is Summerlicious?

During Summerlicious, more than 130 of Toronto’s top restaurants offer residents and tourists alike the opportunity to sample a wide variety of diverse and innovative cuisine through prix fixe menus. Foodies can dine for a lot less on the specially created lunches and dinners that come complete with promotional prices.

Now in its sixth year, Summerlicious features three-course prix fixe menus priced at $15 or $20 for lunch and $25 or $35 for dinner. Restaurants will begin taking Summerlicious reservations on June 19 and American Express Cardmembers can book early reservations on June 17 and 18.

Vincor Canada returns as a sponsor of the event, featuring wine selections by Niagara’s Inniskillin and Jackson Triggs wineries paired with select menus at participating restaurants.

Six of us from Toronto Linkup reserved the 7pm seating and pored over the menu, studiously examining each listed ingredient in order to make a decision. It wasn’t easy, not even for appetisers! Half a dozen oysters or Manhattan chowder? House cured lake trout escabeche with lemon and tomato relish or grilled Portuguese sardines with homemade sourdough panzanella, green olives, and fennel oil? It all sounded so good!

Of course, I brought my camera and took photos of everything our table ordered. Have a look and see what I mean about trying to make a decision:

[thumbnails] [slideshow] or click through the Pictobrowser below

For the record, I had the chowder for my first course, the mussel risotto for my main, and rounded off the meal with the mojito pannacotta, accompanied by Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc (also a thumbs up!). Everything was delicious! In fact, I was salivating over the other appetisers and mains and plotting another trip to try out a different combination of dishes at Starfish. When I’m feeling flush, that is, or maybe if they’ll participate in Winterlicious?

Our six-person group — now reduced to five — moved on from Starfish west and south to King near Yonge Street, to transition to beer-sampling mode. Actually, I’m inclined to believe Ed couldn’t get enough of the sweet stuff after his sticky toffee pudding and was craving some ice cream from BeerBistro. The beer was incidental… but quite tasty, I must say. We ordered beer samplers — a choice of three items off their draught list, which is rather extensive.

I chose a hefe weissen (Germany), organic honey dew (England), and I can’t remember what the third one was…

Two orders of ice cream arrived at our table to accompany our beer, and I bucked the norm by ordering the strawberry rhubarb almond apple crisp, which everyone agreed was excellent in flavour and form. The cool, fresh berries on top were a nice contrast to the warm crisp underneath.

Oh my. The eating had to stop sometime, and this turned out to be around 11pm. Good thing tomorrow’s Friday!