Okay, so birthday gift…mine…headed off to the above mentioned restaurant for birthday dinner. Being a Monday, the streets downtown were quiet and for the most part, pretty easy to navigate just before our 6:30 PM reservations. In fact we got there just a tad early.

I’d read a bit about the history of the building wondering why the name “hardware” and as chance would have it I do remember hearing that it used to be a W.W. Arcade Hardware store during some obscure conversation about old Edmonton buildings so I was curious to see what had become of this building. Truth to tell, the other reason for the choice was they were open Mondays.

We were seated in a corner by the front window facing Jasper Avenue. Far enough away from other diners for most of the evening to make it pretty secluded. We were asked for our first drink orders and provided with a small basket of bread slices with butter.

First up a few aperitifs; my partner had a beer of some sort while I enjoyed a very nice martini done the usual way: gin, vermouth and three large olives. I won’t go into the wine menu, because for one thing I’m about as good at being a wine connoisseur as I would be performing my own appendectomy so trust the waiter’s to make suggestions for our meal choices.

For appetizers, I ordered Bacon Wrapped Atlantic Scallops, atop an English Pea Ravioli, delicately surrounded by a Sweet Onion and Red Wine Reduction, and Tomato Marmalade while my partner had the “Bison Carpaccio, Chèvre Noir, Truffled-Potato Salad, I assume made with, Cold Pressed Canola Oil.

For the main meal, we both had Alberta Beef Tenderloin, with Smoked Mashed Potatoes, Baby Beets, Carrots, Short Rib “Yorkie” and Horseradish Crème Fraiche, done to the chef’s desire.

For the dinner wine, we splurged and ordered a bottle of Masi Campofiorin. According to the bottle, it was made with an odd grape called corvina it also goes through a second fermentation with adds grapes that have been partially dried, it was a very enjoyable red wine and well suited to our meals. A wine I would highly recommend with similar foods.

In today’s current recession dollars the wine and the aperitifs are a treat in a restaurant now. In future I will refrain from ordering alcohol from restaurants as the 200% markup is really beginning to bother me. Why order a $10 glass of wine or a $50 bottle of wine when you can get it in the liquor store for less than $20? Makes no sense and this year this will be the first thing I drop from my dining experiences. Really its ridiculous,  there’s no added value to a bottle of easily found wine compared to say the food preparation and service which is usually second to none and is also why we choose these places.

Anyway I digress…this seems to be an industry standard.

Our first meals were presented in deep bowled plates sort of a like a large flat bowl but with very wide edges…very appealing. My scallops were exquisite they melted in my mouth and the bacon was not too overwhelming for my tastes. The ravioli was laid on the bottom which served to present a means of eating both a scallop along with some of the reductions. I was in heaven. While I was savouring each bite and eating as slowly as I could my partner was enjoying the bison and he remarked later that it too was very tasty.

Our main dinners came shortly after and of course presentation for each plate was identical and very pleasing. The potatoes served as a base for the tenderloin topped by the “Yorkie” perched slightly to one side of the meat and the vegetables surrounding the bottom of plate with the horseradish crème fraiche off to one side. The vegetables were exquisite as I enjoyed the delicate beets and carrots and in among them were a few pearled onions as well. The little yorkie was a gem of flavour filled with what I assume was the  shredded beef short rib and some sort of tasty binding ingredient.

Although the tenderloin is usually the tenderest cut of beef, much to my dismay I found my cut to be slightly tough in spots and it got cold very quickly. Now perhaps this was a method of cooking where the outside is grilled with high heat very quickly while the inside remains tender but I found myself chewing just a tad longer every so often. The other slight disappointment was the potatoes. Now don’t get me wrong I love potatoes done six ways from Sunday and I also enjoy the smoky flavours of a lot of different foods, but I found the potatoes to be very overpowering on some of my bites to a point where I deliberately ensured I no longer had any of them on my fork.

The two meals and bread were too much for us and we were unable to complete our main courses even in spite of eating as slowly as we could but to avoid our food from getting cold. Perhaps we should have gone light on one and heavy on the other. In any case we had no room to indulge in dessert which is too bad as the dessert menu looked as delightful as the dinner one had.

We had two coffees to finish the meal instead.

Total cost including tip $230

Rating: 4/5

Menu: www.hardwaregrill.com/pdffiles/DinnerMenu1.pdf

Location: 9698 Jasper Avenue Tel. 780.423.0969