Taste of Yaletown (Preview) - Available October 15 - 29th

For those who love the concept of Dine Out Vancouver but can't wait till next January to try your favourite restaurants and get your prix fixe menu, you've gotta try "Taste of Yaletown"! It's very similar in that it's a two-week dining event showcasing dishes from 27 restaurants in the Yaletown neighbourhood. The menu combinations are offered at set prices of $25, $35, $45.


Annette O'Shea, Executive Director of the Yaletown BIA says "Yaletown is home to some of the city's best chefs, many of whom view Taste of Yaletown as a time to showcase their creativity. We're excited by some of the new restaurants in the area this year and are looking forward to seeing what the chefs are going to serve up this year for their exclusive Tatse of Yaletown menus."


I attended their media event and previewed Taste of Yaletown menus from two of the 27 participating restaurants. First up was The Parlour. The Parlour is an interesting place to be because you see business people coming here for a business lunch as well as cool hipsters drinking beers near the lounge area in the back.


They offer the $45 menu in which you can choose any two appetizers (excluding the cheese and meat board) and one pizza. These Ahi Lettuce Wraps ($15) had tuna, avocado, citrus ginger soy, mint, spicy ponzu aioli, and crispy shallots. These are also gluten free! :D


The Classic Bruschetta ($10) on thick white toast. Pretty standard.


Apparently this is their signature appetizer. I really enjoyed this Salmon Tartare ($15), but I mean, who wouldn't? It has perfect combination of steelhead salmon, seaweed, bonito, sesame seeds, ponzu, macadamia nuts, and micro cilantro. Anything that resembles poke is a tick in my book.


Stacked Short Ribs ($15)


These Meatball Minis ($11) were the bomb! It had Brioche, reggiano, tomato sauce, sambal, caramelized onion, and roasted garlic aioli. The head chef Matthew said they don't have a freezer or fryer so everything is as fresh as it gets. It was apparent with this ridiculously fresh and tasty meatball slider.


The signature Yaletown ($20) resembles the typical west coast palate. Albacore tuna, red onion, avocado, green onion, cilantro, and spicy aioli. I never thought about putting raw tuna on pizza so this was actually pretty eye opening for me.


I was the odd duckling in the group because I really loved their Standard ($20) Gluten Free pizza. The texture of the crust was nowhere as crispy as the regular wheat variety, but it was chewy, hearty, and totally up my alley.


This is a play on a pear, walnut, blue cheese salad. It's called Hamilton Street ($20).


The next tasting was next door at the Hamilton Street Grill. For T of Y, they are offering a $35 menu.


I believe this was the Chef's Creation Vegetarian Soup consisting of carrot and ginger. Everyone at the table thought this was unbelievable. Give me a big bowl of this with some (gluten free) bread and that can be my dinner.


The Red Onion and Blue Cheese Salad was refreshing but definitely not a huge standout.


As an appetizer, I love the fact that they have a Butternut Squash Risotto on the menu. It's a fabulous opportunity for people to try it out without choosing it as a main. I don't know about you but I always tend to gravitate towards the meatier protein mains versus vegetarian mains when eating a prix fixe menu.


Now this was a showstopper. It's the Icelandic Cod Saltimboca which is a pan seared and proscuitto wrapped black cod. Similar to a filet mignon, the proscuitto added a really nice smokiness to the fish.


The Angus Beef New York Steak was served with their Brandy peppercream sauce, and MY GOD it was delicious. They left the full peppercorns on the steak and it was just friggin amazing. Must get dish in my opinion.


This is a half portion of the Flourless Chocolate Cake with raspberry coulis.

Personally, this Taste of Yaletown event is great for someone like me because there are a lot of fantastic restaurants in Yaletown that I've never tried before. My hope is that I find a gem during these prix fixe menus and end up loving a restaurant I otherwise would've never known about. Time to check out their menus!

Happy Eating!


                                   I'm so excited!!

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Bake My Day Cafe - Pastries and Cookies...Yum

With so many patisseries and bakeries popping up all over Vancouver, it's always hard to choose just one to go to when I'm craving a sweet treat. Luckily for me, I found out about a new bakery in downtown called Bake My Day Cafe.

This little French/German bakery is in a very unassuming location on Beatty street 15 minutes away from the Yaletown skytrain station.

 I don't know about you but I thought their sign and branding is super cute. It almost reminds me of those Polly Pocket dolls I used to play with.

See? SOOOO cute.

They sold macarons, cakes, pies, croissants, bread, and a variety of different carb-o-licious delights.

Their cakes have more of a homey vibe and are visually quite different from a lot of the other bakeries around. I actually quite like that fact because it adds a special touch and it looks like a cake I'd get from my grandma's home.

These Macarons ($1.85) were fresh out of the oven and extremely light and delicate. The only downside for me was that it was overly sweet.

I'm a sucker for anything double baked (twice baked potato from The Keg for example :P) so I naturally gravitated towards the Double Baked Almond Croissant 

If you like dense croissants with a good custard, sweet sticky topping, and crunchy almonds, then this pastry is for you. Curtis (foodobyte) and I both really enjoyed this though half was enough for us.

When it comes to Chocolate Chip Cookies, I like mine soft and chewy. These cookies however were more on the crispy side so if you like crunchy edges and dense centers, this one is for you.

The owners of the bakery, Fatima and Tim were kind enough to send us off with a sweet tart consisting of salted caramel cream, and three mini macarons.

Both Fatima and Tim are delightful and I'm so glad they invited me and Curtis to try out their pastries and sweets. You can really tell they both put a lot effort into make this cafe happen and I for one would love to support them and other local businesses.

Service Rating: 5/5

Food Rating: 3.5/5

Price: $$

Overall Rating: 3.5/5

Happy Eating!

                     do you like cookies bro?

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Ten Ten Tapas (Dine Out Vancouver) - Come Here for Tapas only...Skip the Dinner

I like Dine Out Vancouver because it gives Vancouverites the opportunity to try out new restaurants at a relatively discounted price. I've accepted the fact that it's usually a hit or miss because set menus are usually never as good as ordering a la carte. Nonetheless it's still a good opportunity to taste a bit of everything.

With Ten Ten Tapas, I'll preface this with.. it was a miss. A pretty big miss. I'll try to be as constructive as possible.... but to be honest, (most of) my friends and I left this restaurant pretty disappointed.

Their menu looked promising on the dine out website, but I quickly realized the item I was most excited about got changed... :( More on that later.

I'm sad to say that the Spicy Tuna Barley Sushi was a complete disappointment. The presentation looked incredibly sloppy and I literally had less than half a typical spicy tuna roll. For an appetizer on a $28 menu, I expected MUCH more than this.

All my other friends got the Dungeness Crab Bisque and the general consensus was that it was bland. The soup lacked depth, seasoning, and overall crab flavour.

 I applaud their freshly made pasta for this Winter Squash Ravioli dish. However, the portion similar to the appetizer was quite small and none of us were close to being full after this.

Though the brown butter sauce and golden beets were quite good, the blanched spinach was really odd and felt like it was just put there to add some greenery.

These Braised Beef Short Ribs. I only have one thing to say about them: it tasted like Chinese style beef brisket in mash potatoes and blanched spinach.

Overall, it wasn't a horrible dish. It was solid and if I was paying something more reasonable and it was coming out of a casual restaurant, I'd be happy. But again, for $28, I expected the quality of the food to be higher and more compelling to eat.

This was the item I was most excited about and I can't believe it disappointed me as well. The menu on the dine out website described it as "Fudge Brownie S'more By Candlelight with Walnut Fudge Brownie and Graham Crumb, Ice Cream, Chocolate Sauce, Housemade Marshmallow to roast by candlelight". Where's the ice-cream, graham crumb, or roasting of marshmallow by candlelight?! Sigh.

Lil Sis's brownie was also cold so the marshmallow didn't melt. She left her dessert mostly untouched.

The (slightly) saving grace was the live music during our dinner. They were lively, great with the crowd, and sang the jazzy blues everyone knows and loves. Fon loved it so much she said she would come back just for the music.

Ten Ten Tapas seems to be a great place to have drinks, eat the occasional pita and dip, and enjoy live music. It's not a place for full meals or dine out so I definitely suggest coming with that in mind to avoid disappointment like us.

Service Rating: 2.5/5
Food Rating: 1.5/5
Price: $$$-$$$$

Overall Rating: 2/5

Happy Eating!


                  unimpressed face during dinner

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CRAFT Beer Market (Yaletown) - Big Kid Lemonade, Barrel of Nachos and Gluten Free Mac and Cheese!

CRAFT Beer Market is a casual restaurant located a few minutes away from Olympic Village and they specialize in all things beer. 

They have over 100 beer on tap and they offer the most extensive list of beer in Vancouver!

What I loved about this "Salt Building" are their high ceilings and lush furniture. We had a booth and god was it comfortable. Truly this restaurant could probably seat four hundred people- it was huge in size!

A lot of their entrees are made with some type of beer like their Craft House Beer, Beer Braised Brisket, Philips Beer Can Chicken, and more. If you're a beer lover, you gotta come here!

 

I had the Big Kid Lemonade (essentially tasted like Red Robin's Strawberry Lemonade but spiked) and a gluten free beer. Both were delicious and I was pleasantly surprised by the deliciousness of the gluten free beer!

Salt and Pepper Chicken Wings ($13) came with carrot and celery sticks.

I wanted to try the Fast Food Sushi but unfortunately they sold out. :( Instead we got the Thai Lettuce Wraps ($12) which came with crispy noodles, tiny portion of veggies, rice, and a trio of sauces. T

The fact that this dish is vegetarian made it quite boring. The only substance were the crispy noodles which I don't particularly enjoy.

Their Nacho Barrel ($18) was no joke! Served in a legit barrel (weighing at least 10 pounds), the mountain of nachos, cheese, tomatoes, jalapenos, peppers were perfect to share amongst our large table.

I chose the Craft Mac and Cheese + Gluten Free Pasta ($16+$2) and it was made with a blend of cheddar, gouda, mozzarella, and fontina cheese. 

The cheese wasn't overly creamy or saucy but it did caress each pasta enough for me to enjoy it very much. I don't know if the pasta was made with quinoa or corn or brown rice, but it held its own and tasted exactly like regular wheat pasta! Two thumbs up.

Grilled West Coast Salmon ($24) served with quiona, almonds, and green beans were delicious.

This is my boss' favourite burger at CRAFT Beer Market. The Bacon and Blue Cheeseburger ($16) is stuffed with blue cheese and topped with bacon, caramelized onions, mayo, mustard, lettuce, tomato, and pickles.

The Farm Fresh Chicken & Kale Salad ($17) is tossed with cranberries, goat cheese, pine nuts, shaved brussel sprouts, and tossed in a spicy orange and cilantro dressing.

This was my second choice but I didn't end up getting it. It's the House Made Bolognese ($16) and what caught my eye was that it's fresh pasta made in-house!

The Craft Signature Sticky Ribs ($24) is tossed in a black garlic and miso BBQ sauce, served with brussel sprouts and potatoes.

My friend really enjoyed the Dark Beer Braised Beef Brisket ($25). It's braised for 10 hours and dredged in their housemade sauce.

I'll definitely be coming back to try more of their dishes and maybe catch the Canucks game with some beer and wings.

Service Rating: 4.5/5
Food Rating: 4/5
Price: $$$-$$$$

Overall Rating: 4/5

Happy Eating!

 

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