We visited Full Circle on 17th Ave on a Sunday evening at 6pm. I was hoping parking wouldn’t be too bad, and we were able to find a spot across the street, which was nice. I had made a reservation but really didn’t need to. It was wonderfully quiet – the music wasn’t too loud and there weren’t too many people in the restaurant. Perhaps the only downfall to a quiet evening is that service actually seemed slow too. The restaurant is a fair size, with lots of windows in the front. Scraggly tomato plants in Burpee brand containers adorn the windows – those, I wasn’t too sure about. We sat at a table against the front window so it was nice to people watch on 17th.
I paid $29 for a Travel Zoo voucher worth up to $61 – 1 shared appy ($15), 1 pizza ($22), and 2 drinks ($12 ea). If we chose a menu item that was over the maximum value printed on the coupon, we simply paid the difference. Since I had got such a great deal on the coupon I was all for picking whatever we wanted. We each ordered the Caesar to drink – for $16 it was a meal in and of itself. With an oyster, meat, cheese, veggies and arancini it was a blast (and the drink itself was good – with a nice kick of horseradish). Jay actually said – and I quote – “This may just be the best caesar I’ve ever had!” It took quite a while for the drinks to come, and we wondered why, since the restaurant was so quiet. I think it was because they were waiting on the kitchen – the arancini (stuffed rice balls) garnish on the Caesar were warm so they must have had to be cooked for our drinks (just a heads up).
As an appy we wanted to try more than one thing so we went for the ‘little of this, little of that’ for $23. It was a great appy since we got quite a few things. It was more of an experience than just a dish to eat – it was fun! I had specifically asked if we could have the tartare on the plate, so it was nice that they obliged. I really wanted to try it, and it turned out to be really nice. It was well balanced and not too creamy. The oyster aioli was subtle and the tartare went well on the smoked and toasted bread and parmigiana crisps.
We ordered the California pi with smoked trout, mascarpone, scallions, roe, capers and egg yolk. Damn, this was good pizza pi. But, it’s a pizza you maybe shouldn’t think of as pizza. It was served cold, so it was actually a shock to my mouth at first. They serve their pis with a house made jalapeño oil which was awesome – filled with jalapeños and roasted garlic. If you like smoked fish you should like this pi. I did find a couple bones in the fish, but found them before I took a bite. The scallions brought a nice fresh touch to the pi and it was nice that the roe didn’t make the pi too fishy. We would definitely order this pi again, although I’d really like to try a number of the other ones on the menu because a bunch of them look good.
All in all, this was a great Travel Zoo deal for the price. We quite enjoyed the evening, although we found service to be slow. We weren’t in a rush, but it was definitely noticeable. The food was great and Full Circle is a restaurant we’d definitely return to.
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