Pick participated in the Vancouver Blogathon this year, helping to represent the Developmental Disabilities Association. Not only was he an active blogging participant, he also won TinyBites.ca‘s top donor award for his donation to the Vancouver Food Bank. For his efforts, he received a 3-restaurant, progressive multi-course dinner for 2 at Blue Water Cafe, West, and CinCin. As luck would have it, he decided to take me as his date.

Before we went on our feast, Pick was contacted by Top Table and they asked him if there was anything he really wanted to eat at any of the restaurants. We were pretty open to eating whatever the chefs wanted to serve us although we did have some preferences with respect to dessert. It was decided that we would have 2 dishes at each restaurant, starting with appetizers at Blue Water Cafe.

When I arrived at the restaurant, Pick was already there but he was kind enough to wait for me before digging into the bread. Accompanying the bread was a roasted red pepper hummus and a seaweed butter. I started first with the hummus but the real star here was definitely the seaweed butter. It was full of seaweed flavour and salted just enough to really complement the seaweed and the bread. Both Pick and I admitted that we were chowing down on more bread than was wise, just so that we could have more of this butter. It was so good that if Blue Water sells this for home use, I would definitely buy it! [Pick's notes: We definitely ate more bread than we should have, but the seaweed butter was just too good!]

Our attentive server probably noticed just how much bread we were eating, so he wisely brought over our first dish of the evening. The amuse bouche was a crab and cucumber salad marinated in a sunomono-like vinaigrette. The vinaigrette had a mild taste of rice wine vinegar and blended the crunchy cucumbers with the crab very nicely. [Pick's notes: Many different flavors and textures were combined in this dish - the cucumbers, the vinaigrette, the crabs - everything fit together nicely and made this dish "fun" to eat and refreshing in flavor.]

Next, we were presented with a plate of fresh Kusshi oysters. Both Pick and I are huge oyster fans and the Kusshis at Blue Water were very fresh and tasty. Our server told us that they are brought in fresh daily and you could really tell from eating these oysters. They had a slight sweetness and firmness to them which made me wish that I could eat more than the 3 that Pick allocated to me. We drizzled a little of the fresh horseradish and vinaigrette, although this wasn’t totally necessary as the flavour of the oysters really shone through. [Pick's notes: Oysters hardly disappoint, and they definitely did not this time either.]

Our last dish at Blue Water Cafe was a scallop carpaccio with black truffles, mixed greens, and a sesame miso dressing. The scallops were thinly sliced and like the oysters, were very fresh. The woodsy taste of the truffles went very well with the slightly sweet scallops and the saltiness of the miso dressing. This was one of the best preparations of scallops that I have had in quite a long while. [Pick's notes: Definitely my favorite dish for the evening. This dish was prepared perfectly in every way possible; from the thickness of each slice to the flavor of the garnishes.]

Our eating adventure was off to a great start at Blue Water Cafe. It’s hard to objectively review the food and service since our dinner was part of a prize and everyone knew about us prior to our arrival. However, I have to say that the service was top notch and very attentive without being suffocating. The food was also excellent and was a huge improvement over my Dine Out experience at Blue Water several years ago.

[Pick's notes: Blue Water was a great start to the evening. I really doubt the food could have been any better. Thank you again to Karen Hamilton from Tinybites and to Shelley from Top Table for organizing this fantastic dinner.]

Part 2 at West will be posted later this week!

Details:
1095 Hamilton Street, Vancouver
Tel: 604-688-8078

Summary:
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Price: n/a

Tagged as: Japanese, Reviews, West Coast, Yaletown