The Albert Park Hotel

This once run down but recently refurbished pub has a bistro syle restaurant serving contemporary food is matching culinary swords with quite a few restaurants in the vicinity.
On the corner of Dundas and Montgomery St. it is a stones throw from l'oustal and Ricardo's and has a quality chef, Cath Kalka, who trained with Greg Malouf at O'Connels, to match the opposition.
There are several other dining areas including an outside area and bar dining.
Being the only diners there was nothing of the bustling, energy one sometimes gets in bistros but rather a sedate laid back feeling. The trendy decor is rather more utilitarian than exciting.
The menu is exciting and I looked forward to the pasta with mushoom which was a good size tasty serve covered with shavings of cheese. Good for a hungry diner
The chicken liver pate was very good, smooth textured, lightly cooked - just what I think it should be like. An excellent start. It must be hard to make anything special with fish and chips but I live in hope (Bistro Guillame does pretty well) Here the best thing was the home made Tartare Sauce. The Trevaly was not bad but not good being a little dry and the batter reasonable. I think a more adventurous choice might have worked better The crispy duck was very crisp - more than a little overdone and stringy-

It had very little fat and did not have a good duck taste. If you like crisp you could not do better
Dessert: Creme caramel was not at al good, it had the wrong texture and was too sweet, and could not be saved by the pear and ice cream accompanimentHouse red and whites are very ordinary though they are served in large, delicate tumblers, Reidel I suspect, which are almost to big to pick up in one hand!
In all it was a pleasant meal in a pleasant place
Price: Average for pub restaurant prices. We had a special 2 course lunch with a glass of wine $30, an extra course is $10 more and that is very good value.
Score:Barely 13.25 /20