Delux Burger Bar & Gabanna: A Review Two for One

One day over the holidays I came home with with the sweet bellyache of gluttony. I went out for lunch and then later for dinner, and filled myself to the brim and beyond both times.

To start with, I went to Delux Burger Bar. One of the Century hospitality Group of restaurants, I had never been to before. I am not really a burger gal, so I was not that interested, but it was close, so my friend and I gave it a try. The restaurant was pretty packed thanks to it being holiday time. It was cute and seemed like a contemporary diner type space.

We decided to share the burger of the day, which was a chicken burger with bacon, bbq sauce, and havarti cheese, as well as a side order of sweet potato fries (sides are ordered seperately), and the glass noodle salad. The burger was pretty much as expected. BBQ sauce, cheese and bacon really can't be bad together. The sweet potato fries were tasty, and for me are always a welcome option to regular fries. They came with a typical spicey aoli dip, which was not too spicey, but just a nice side. The glass noodle salad came with a good amount of teriyaki chicken, but not enough cashew nuts in my opinion.

The waiter did split up our meals so that we each had our own plates, and I love it when restaurants do that since I like sharing entrees (why eat one thing when you can try two things?). It is a cute concept, and I would go there again for lunch, but I am not sure I would choose it for dinner.

Later that night I was getting together for a night out with my dinner club. We go to a different restaurant once a month (no chains allowed), to get out on the town and eat and visit without anyone having to do all the cooking and cleaning. This month we were a tiny group of three seeing as we were competing with all the other holiday goings on. We ended up going to Gabbana.

The decor was bright and colourful, and the menu was described as EuroAsian. We arrived with no reservations, and were told that the wait would be about 10 minutes. We ended up waiting a good deal more than that (maybe 30 minutes?), but were eventually seated.

I got the lemongrass chicken, which was done as a green curry. I have been eating a lot of indian curry lately, and had forgotten how much different a thai curry was and how much I liked it. Whereas indian curries taste complex and warm, thai curries can be much sweeter and fresher tasting. This curry was very well balanced with the lemon grass and the coconut milk. Sweet, fresh and delicious! It was served with rice, and steamed veggies. The veggies were generally done quite well, and the variety was good and included white beech mushrooms. The carrot and squash were over cooked, but the rest were done well.

We decided to share a holiday dessert and went with the three chocolate terrine. It was disappointing, and strangely powdery tasting for a mousse dessert.

The main was good, and the menu had a lot of options that sounded interesting and were reasonably priced ($16 - $24 generally), so I will be back, but probably won't have the dessert again.