The Scallops Pan-seared at Sorrentino’s in Edmonton were quite nice but were served nearly cold. I only gave them a 3 out of 5 Rating.
I managed to have a number of meals at Sorrentino’s in downtown Edmonton while I was visiting the City, and I was quite impressed with the place overall. Their Arancine Poutine Appetizer was very well executed, if a little rich for my taste, and was nicely plated. The Seared Scallop appetizer you see above was also generally well done, but what could have been a top-notch dish lost marks by the way it ended up being served.
This dish consisted of three medium sized Scallops served atop a puree of Leek and Potato. The Scallops were garnished with very thin slivers of additional Leek that had been very lightly dusted with starch and the fried to a very nice crispiness. There was also a small side salad of Arugula that came with a dressing based, as far as I could tell, on sun-dried Tomatoes.
The salad may have provided some visual appeal, but the benefit largely ended there. The ‘dressing’, as such, was just a tiny blob of thick paste that was gone with one very small forkful, leaving the rest of the Arugula leaves dry and uninteresting.
The Scallops themselves were very nicely seared, being crisp outside and juicily tender in the middle, and I very much liked slivered Leek garnish as it added a very pleasing textural contrast. The bed of pureed Leek and Potato was also a very good choice here, and I like the texture combination as well as the flavor. It was subtle, lightly seasoned with little else than Salt and Pepper, but carried a faint background note of Garlic.
My real disappointment here, however, was that the dish arrived at my table almost cold. If it had been completely cold, that might even have worked, but the lukewarm temperature, obviously from having been left to sit after being prepared, really diminished my enjoyment. Sorrentino’s is really a decent restaurant, and with generally excellent food, but there was a failure in quality control in this case and I could only award the Scallops Grilled at Sorrentino’s with a Rating of 3 out of 5.