Company: A sick +Will
I had been watching the dates for Piola's All-you-can-eat Gnocci nights for a while now to see when the 29th would fall on a good weekend to attend. Luckily for the month of February, they decided to have Gnocci night on the 28th which happened to be a Saturday instead of skipping it altogether! I made a reservation for 2 for the 7PM seating and patiently awaited for the date to come. Unfortunately for Will, he started to get sick that week and still wasn't feeling 100% on the Saturday. We were debating skipping it and trying again next month, but in the end Will thought he could still eat a decent amount of gnocci.
We drove to Piola because it is quite a ways from us on Queen West. We found parking easily on the street but had a bit of trouble with finding the right entrance to the restaurant. Apparently the left side is not where the entrance is and the different coloured building to the right is also Piola, much to my mistake. We waited a few minutes after we told them of our reservation and were then taken to an open room in the back. There was some confusion on our table as we were moved a bit later to a smaller table for 2 right in the middle of the room instead of a table for 4. There were a huge group of older Italians which took up a lot of the area so I think they were trying to sort them out.
We didn't have drink menus on the table or anything so we ended up just getting waters. About 15 minutes after 7PM, a waitress came out of the kitchen with a huge bowl of gnocci and started going to tables. They would come up and tell you what flavour they had and we would tell them if we wanted any or not. Then they would scoop a bit on your plate and go on to the next table. It was a really fun experience to anticipate what we were getting next and trying all of them. The speed at which them came was a bit slow at first but it allowed you to enjoy the food and some conversation as well. They started flowing more heavily at the end but by then I was starting to reject them. There were about 9 flavours we got to try before they started repeating.
The gnocci itself I thought was good, very squishy and softer than I remembered them. Will said the texture is usually like that and only the size was a bit smaller than normal. I would have liked to taste a bit more potato in them though, I felt like it was all dough. I've ranked the flavours and what I thought about them below:
Favourites:
Rose - This was my favourite of them all just because the flavour was mellow, sweet and not too prominent. Great combination of creaminess, tomatoes, and cheese.
Sage & Butter - This one looked like it had no sauce but it was packed with flavour. Never tried anything like it before and really enjoyed it.
Ham & Tomato - Second one we got and compared to the Tomato & Mozzarella, it tasted so much better. Very smooth and creamy with a nice lightness added from the tomatoes.
Bolognese - The bolognese had lots of minced meat in the tomato sauce. Interesting flavour, a bit sweet almost like Chef Boyardee.
Neutral:
Ham & Mushroom - Nothing too special about this one. Had it third after the Ham & Mushroom so it was almost the same except I thought the sauce was heavier.Tomato & Mozzarella -This is the first one we tried, the tomato flavour was too sour and very little mozzarella.
Didn't like:
Four Cheese - A little disappointed by this one, not enough cheese flavour to be honest.
Puttanesca (spicy tuna, olives, capers, onion, tomato) - Wasn't sure what it was when we first got it but could definitely tell there were olives from the colour and some kind of seafood from the taste. Not a fan of either tuna or olives.Basil Pesto - The texture was the biggest turnoff, too grainy.
After dinner, I didn't want to have gnocci for a long time. Now, I can't wait to have it again. I noticed though that I favourited the ones with mild flavours that let the gnocci do the talking, which is a good sign I think! Fun setting to enjoy so authentic Italian food in a well organized manner. All in all, we paid $25 each to stuff ourselves silly with little dough dumplings of goodness.
Food: 4/5 - Lots of hits with the flavours, amazing AYCE experience
Decor: 3/5 - Very rustic, wooden walls everywhere with colourful tables. Lots of space.
Service: 3/5 - Impressive flow of food, no one was going to go home hungry. Some of the servers looked like they hated their lives though and others were hard to understand what flavour we were getting.
Willingness to go back: 4.5/5 - Totally, their pizza looks amazing too! So many Italians there, it must be legit.
Overall: 3.5/5
Website: http://www.piolatoronto.com/
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