restaurant review

Five Sails at the Pan Pacific Hotel
999 Canada Place,
Vancouver, BC
Ph: 604-844-2855 or Reserve Online

Last July on a brief visit to Chicago for a conference, my Chicago friends showed me some of their favorite restaurants and I enjoyed dining at Boka, Perennial, Takashi and at Terzo Piano at the Art Institute of Chicago. When I learned that they were coming to Vancouver for an equally brief visit, I wondered how to choose from our many excellent restaurants to give them an insight into the "foodie" scene in Vancouver.

Tapastree Restaurant
1829 Robson St
Vancouver, BC
Ph: (604) 606-4680 or Reserve Online

Although I live downtown, there are so many excellent places to eat south-east of Burrard Street that I have spent little time checking out restaurants around the Denman Street area and the West End. But this evening we were going to attend the opening night of Theatre Under The Stars production of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" at Stanley Park so I decided to visit Tapastree. I love tapas style eating because one can try small tastes of several different dishes and I really looked forward to  this meal. I did not expect to be blown away as I was, by the flavours and the excellent value.

Market by Jean-Georges
1128 West Georgia St.
Vancouver, British Columbia
Ph: (604) 689-1120 or Reserve Online

I have enjoyed two dinner meals at Market by Jean-Georges and on both occasions have been impressed by both the quality of the food, and the impeccable service.  I also had the opportunity to sample the black truffle fontina cheese  pizza and the rice cracker-crusted seared tuna on Michelle Ng's recent Downtown Foodie tour: (Guest Reviewer Amanda takes the Vancouver Foodie Tour).

This review focuses only on the second time I dined at Market, prior to seeing a play at the PAL Theatre on Cardero. As usual we were there for an early dinner, around 6 pm. We were seated immediately at a nice sized table. Iced water was brought promptly.

Society Dining Lounge
1257 Hamilton Street
Vancouver, BC
Ph: (604) 629-8800 or Reserve Online

We have previously enjoyed several meals at Coast Restaurant, the previous Glowbal Group restaurant at this location on Hamilton Street but since Coast has been re-incarnated on Alberni Street, and the eatery at this location was reborn as Society, we have not had the opportunity to visit either the new Coast or Society.

  The mantra for the new Society is "comfort food. completely re-imagined." Sounded interesting so on a recent warm summer evening we strolled across to Society to enjoy some casual dining out on their patio.

 We decided to share three dishes. The crispy calamari  with smoked red pepper aioli  was hot and crisp with tender calamari. The smoky flavour really came through in the dipping sauce.

The Edge Social Grille and Lounge
1100 Granville Street,
Vancouver. BC
Ph: (604) 681-3433 or Reserve Online

The Edge Social Grille and Lounge was one of the restaurants we visited on the recent Foodie Tour hosted by Michelle Ng:  Foodie Tours rediscovers Granville Street 2010. I so much enjoyed the flatbread samples at The Edge provided for the tour, that I vowed I would return for a meal at the Grille as soon as I had an opportunity to do so.

It was around 8:30 on Sunday evening after a couple of hours of dance classes, Country-2 Step and West Coast Swing at UrbanDance on Granville, that we decided to drop in to The Edge for a light supper. The restaurant was fairly quiet and our server, Briana, was quick and efficient. Having expended a lot of energy we were really hungry so to get an idea of the range of dishes, we decided to share 4 appetizer plates.

La Quercia,
3689 West 4 Avenue
Vancouver, BC
Ph: (604) 676-1007 or Reserve online

Continuing my exploration of supping locales close to the theatres at UBC and  Jericho Arts Centre  (where we were going to see The Misanthrope), we booked at La Quercia, on West 4th Avenue, near Alma.

This is a small intimate Italian restaurant and obviously a  neighbourhood gem because there was not an empty table by the time we left. Their wine list features Italian wines exclusively.  I had a glass of the Riff 2008 Pino Grigio.

Our server explained the fresh sheet items that were additional to the regular menu. The specials were also written on a large chalk board on the wall.

To start I wavered between the spot prawn appetizer and the Sformato di parmigiano  on the regular menu. I chose the latter - a parmesan souffle with balsamic and thin shaved asparagus,  and it was absolutely delicious. The asparugus lightly tossed with vinegar added a tartness that contrasted nicely with the creamy sweetness of the souffle.

My companion chose the fresh sheet asparagus soup with scallop-stuffed morels and declared it quite delectable.

Sanafir Restaurant and Lounge
1026 Granville Street,
Vancouver, BC
Ph: 604- 678-1049 or Reserve Online

Sanafir has been on my "to visit" list for ages but somehow the right opportunity did not come up.  Finally, after a West Coast Swing class at UrbanBeat that ended at 8:30 pm, three of us walked a block over and across Granville Street, to Sanafir for a late supper.

I had read on their website that "sanafir" is the Arabic word for "meeting place". A quick perusal of their menu told us that to experience the "meeting" of flavours from North Africa, Asia and the Middle East, we should order from the Tapas Trios selections.  The menu created by Sean Riley (Director of Food Operations) and new Executive Chef Michael Robbins features tapas trios of Calamari, Beef, Lamb, Chicken, Halibut and Seafood.

 Goldfish Pacific Kitchen
1188 Mainland Street,
Vancouver, BC
Ph: 604-689-8318 or Reserve online

Last summer we dropped into Goldfish Pacific Kitchen for an early dinner in their courtyard patio. Our waiter introduced us to their experimental Chef's table dinner concept and we were intrigued enough at the time to try it out.

The idea was that rather than ordering from the regular menu, we would chat with the chef to inform him of any food allergies or violent antipathies to any foods, and then he would prepare a special surprise menu from whatever was freshly available. Chef  Ryan Mah was cooking that evening and he prepared a memorable 5 course tasting menu which looked as beautiful as it tasted and garnered Goldfish Pacific Kitchen a rave review from me.

This week, with foodie visitors from New York and Toronto in town, I checked to see if Goldfish was still offering the Chef's Table dinner. Although I did not see this supping experience listed on their website, when I called I was told that this was indeed available and we decided to try it again.

This time Maitre d' Albert Chee informed us that Executive Chef William Tse, would be doing the honours and we waited with great anticipation to see what he would come up with. 

Federico's Supper Club
1728 Commercial Drive,
Vancouver
Ph: 604-251-3473 or Reserve Online

I have been on the hunt for places to "dine and dance" in Vancouver but this seems to be a rare entity these days. Federico's Supper Club is one of those few places that has a dance floor, albeit not large.

The evening when a group of us decided to check out this restaurant turned out to be the second special event night that featured Executive Chef  Romy Prasad giving a cooking demonstration of a 5 course, wine-paired "Taste of Italy" menu. 

On inquiry, we learned that startinging promptly at 6 pm, Chef Prasad would show us how to cook each course, then the dish would be served together with a 3 oz pouring of a matched wine. Joe Borean, the maitre d' and sommelier would describe the characteristics of the wine. The cooking demonstration and dining was scheduled to be completed by around 9 pm and would be followed by music for dancing, featuring Federico. All very cool!

Since we chose to do the wine pairing with the meal (it is optional) we arranged to be dropped off by taxi and arrived promptly at 5:30. Each of us was given a very nice menu listing the courses and the paired wines, as well as the recipes for each of the dishes.