Monday, July 16th, 2007
I went with Pick to Cassis Bistro the other day. It is a French bistro located at 420 W. Pender in downtown Vancouver. I haven’t been here for over a year but the value of the food here is great. Pick had wanted to try this for a while and I’m always happy to go there. 
First, the bread. I’m not sure if they make the bread themselves but it was so good that we asked for a second helping. The outside was warm and crusty and the inside was nice and soft. It went great with the balsamic vinegar and olive oil.
We were pleasantly surprised when our waiter served us with small dishes of amuse-bouche. It wasn’t too much to look at but our server told us it was a potato vichyssoise with a drizzle of truffle oil. To me, this was my favourite dish of the meal. If it was on the menu, I would definitely order it every time I come here! It was light and airy, almost like mousse, and the truffle oil added a nice little punch.
For our appetizer, Pick and I shared the brie cheese fondue, which came with focaccia breadsticks, cucumbers, and grapes. There are different types of cheese you can choose for the fondue and this one was $14.75. The cheese was not too heavy and the cucumbers and grapes were interesting accompaniments for the fondue. I also dipped some of the French bread with the cheese.
The main courses at Cassis are very reasonable…most if not all are under $20. I chose the canard l’orange (orange duck) for $17.50 and a side of glazed cauliflower, asparagus, and tomatoes.
The duck tasted great and came with a small fennel salad. You could really taste the oranges and all the fat had been cooked off so the duck did not taste too fatty at all.
The market veggies were pretty good but if I had known the duck dish was so big, I probably wouldn’t have ordered the additional veggies. I was only able to eat a few pieces and had to pack this up.
Pick had the Daube de Boeuf (beef stew) because one of his friends had told him this was really good. This did not disappoint and Pick was very happy.
He also had a side of ratatouille (like the movie ;)) but like me and the market veggies, he was already full with the beef stew and probably didn’t need to add the ratatouille to be full.
On to dessert. By this point, I was already pretty full, but Pick convinced me that I couldn’t come to Cassis and not have dessert. We decided on the lemon tart, which was a great deal at $5, and a flourless chocolate torte with pistachio ice cream.
The lemon tart was nice and tangy with a great lemon flavour but the crust was a bit too thick for me.
The flourless chocolate torte was perfection and went very well with the pistachio ice cream. It was very hot that day and even hotter inside the restaurant (there was no air conn!) so unfortunately, the ice cream was a bit melted. However, I liked this quite a bit more than the lemon tart.
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Yet another great meal at Cassis. If you want good French food at reasonable prices, this is the place to go. The wine selection is great and the server even let me try a variety of different wines before I finally settled on one. The last few times I was here, I found the entrees a bit on the small side and always needed to add a side dish. However, this time, I found that the entrees were more than enough and didn’t even need a side dish.
Details:
420 W. Pender St, Vancouver
Tel: 604-605-0420
Summary:
Food: 
Service:
Price: $$$
Posted in French, Reviews | 5 Comments »
Thursday, July 5th, 2007
I went to So.cial at le Magasin the other day in Gastown. It is a French-style bistro that opened fairly recently. The space itself is pretty nice and looks out over Water Street. It was a sunny day and we could hear the steam clock chiming every hour.
It took us a while to decide on what to eat. The great thing about going with a group of friends is that you can coordinate your picks so you can taste basically everything on the menu. While we were making our choices, the waitress brought us some bread with home-made white bean dip. It tasted great and the best thing was that it kept coming without us asking for more!
The 5 of us also shared a plate of the charcuterie. I was expecting it to be similar to what I ate in France, which was mostly different types of sausages. But we had a selection of fois gras, duck pate, and cured venison meat. It came with crackers and dried tomatoes which went well with all 3 items. I found the cured venison to be a bit on the salty side but the fois gras and duck pate were very flavourful.
I had chili honey glazed duck which came with some crunchy veggie hash and beans. I couldn’t taste the chili glaze very much but the crunchy hash provided a good contrast to the duck. I like my duck a bit more rare though and felt that there was too much oil at the bottom of my dish where the veggies were sitting.
Victoria had the maple seared salmon with cured pork belly and clam emulsion. I had a taste and the salmon was cooked just right and was soooo good. She commented that the bottom of her dish also had too much oil too and that the maple sweetness was too much towards the bottom of the dish.
Chris had the halibut which was accompanied by peas, beans, and a creamy crustacean sauce. It was sitting on a bed of crunchy potatoes which went great with the moist halibut. He found his veggies to be a bit overcooked though, which was what I experienced with mine as well.
Thu had one of the daily specials, which was a pork chop with the bone still in and a berry sauce accompaniment. The pork chop was very tender and went very well with the berry sauce.
Connie had the other daily special, which was a bison steak. It had a slightly stronger taste than beef but was very tender and tasted excellent. Lucky for her…she got the last one available for the day. It was served on a bed of creamy mushroom risotto.
After all this food, we were too stuffed for dessert. The sides for our dishes could have been better prepared, but overall, the meal was pretty good and hopefully, they will work out some of these kinks soon enough. The appetizer we all shared was about $14 and the main courses were between $24-27. We also shared a bottle of wine and the final bill came to about $47/person after tax and tip.
This was a fun place to try and I would like to come back some day to check out their brunch menu.
Details:
200-332 Water St, Vancouver
Tel: 604-669-4488
Posted in French, Reviews | No Comments »
Sunday, June 17th, 2007
It was my birthday on Friday and Jenkins took me to Cru restaurant on Broadway & Granville. I had been there earlier this year for Dine-Out Vancouver and had a great experience there. Cru is a mid-range French bistroand although the prix fixe menu is a good place to start, there are also a la carte items available. Each of the dishes are also colour-coded to match different categories of wines, which we found very helpful.
I decided to go with the prix fixe menu and selected a cold apple-cucumber melon soup to start. The soup was refreshing and tasty although I could hardly taste any of the apple or cucumber. I suspect this was because of the fennel garnishes which were very overpowering and pretty much took over the whole dish.
Jenkins went with the appetizer special, which was a spot prawn dish with cucumber and daikon radish on the side. We later found out that because it was the special, it meant that the prix fixe pricing didn’t apply to Jenkins’ dishes. He didn’t feel that the dish was good enough to justify having to pay $20 extra for his meal.
On to our mains. I had the seared tuna with haricots vert, olives, quails egg, and a smoked paprika vinaigrette. I enjoyed this quite a bit and the slightly spicy vinaigrette provided an extra pop to the dish. It also went very well with my glass of Gewürztraminer.
Jenkins had the seared pork tenderloin with organic farro and morel mushroom sherry sauce. I had a taste and I have to admit that I liked it even more than mine. The sauce complemented the pork perfectly and we couldn’t resist dipping our bread in the sauce to finish it off. He had a glass of Merlot which he said matched the pork well.
Finally, it was time for my favourite part of any meal…dessert! I had been dreaming about the bitter chocolate torte with passion fruit curd for over a week now and I was not disappointed. The rich chocolaty goodness was offset with the tangy passion fruit.
Jenkins had the vanilla creme brulee which came with a home made sable biscuit. It was very creamy and was just the right consistency. I liked the thick sugary shell on top.
All in all, it was a great dinner and a perfect start to my birthday evening. The quality of food at Cru was great and well worth it especially if you had the prix fixe. Service was prompt and the staff was friendly. By the time we left at around 8, the restaurant was packed and they had to turn away a couple of parties that did not have reservations. I would definitely come here again.
Details:
1459 W Broadway, Vancouver
Tel: 604-677-4111
Posted in Vancouver, Lower Mainland Cities, French, Reviews | 3 Comments »
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