Come savor a delightful meal at Andre's Swiss Country Dining. This eatery offers hamburgers for 11$ to 25$. They are open nightly from Tuesday to Saturday and are accessible by car.
It's nice to have a great place to have dinner when you're out of the city (Toronto). Our server highly recommended the fish special and she was right. Andre's served me an exceptional meal of pickerel that was cooked to perfection over sauteed spinach and mixed mushrooms with perfect pillows of gnocchi in a butter and white wine, caper sauce. Normally I'm not a fan of gnocchi since I find them too doughy but these were a pleasure to eat. My Valentine enjoyed the choucroute garnie (also known as the "meat" plate) but it is a heavy meal. Various pork cuts served with a selection of mustards, cabbage done 2 ways with a heaping portion of rosti. I shared my pickerel and I know he wished he ordered the same. It was the special of the evening but I hope it becomes a regular menu item because it was absolutely the best meal I've had in ages.
The creme brulee was delicious and the apple strudel was more then enough for 2 people to share.
My only criticism is the lack of ambience. For a Valentines evening out although a candle was lit at the table, it was far from a candlelight dinner with all the lights on to their full brightness in the restaurant. A dimmer switch does wonders to a room and really, that's all that was necessary.
*The HOR Club -Bruce County is the Highly Ordered Resturants Club, we go alphabeticaly through the yellow pages and experience all of the resturants one by one*
My first impression of Andre's was that of quiet sophistication, classy while still feeling smaller and more reminiscent of grandma's kitchen, very warm and inviting.
For a starter I ordered the "French Escargots", which besides being a redundant name, was quite good. I have never had escargots before but if this is what they are normally like I will definitely order them in the future. They came on a specifically designed plate with 8 little wells for the escargots to sit in bathing in their garlic and parsley marinade. The texture was quite nice, being tender and not the least bit chewy.
For the entree I ordered the Choucroute Garnie which included; Smoked pork loin (a nice way to say smoked ham), a healthy chunk of smoked bacon (possibly my favourite of the dish), three different varieties of sausage, and a piece of tender, crisp schnitzel. The dish included three varieties of mustards (dijon, honey dijon, and honey mustard) which were quite good. The dish also included traditional sauerkraut, delicious braised red cabbage, and their wonderful Roesti potatoes (hash browns). As you can imagine this is a very large meal and is a little fatty for my taste. Don’t get me wrong, everything about it was fantastic, but unless you enjoy a substantial amount of grease i would recommend something lighter than this. Not for the health conscious, however, if you split it with someone I would definitely recommend it.
Our wine choice for the night was a 2006 Cave Spring Riesling, which although a bit sweet for my taste was overall quite good and if sweet wines are your thing, I would recommend this choice.
Overall I will give Andre's a 9.5 out of 10. It probably would have gotten an 10 but it took over a half an hour between asking for the bill and actually getting said bill. Quite a pity as everything else was quite excellent.
I lived in Switzerland for over 4 years, this is...
I lived in Switzerland for over 4 years, this is authentic Swiss cuisine at its best! The Roschti is awesome, the soup was very creamy(definitely not low-fat)and the Berner platte was more than enough for the two of us. I've been eating at Andre's for years now, the service has always been excellent, and the mood is very relaxed.
