Vancouver Lee

Went to Hy's in Ottawa earlier this week on business. It's exactly the same - dark, conservative, very old school. But that's Hy's thing, to look like a private members' club for the expense account crowd. Steaks are good, service is good, drinks are served in proper bottom-heavy glassware, and it's dark and quiet enough to talk privately. The place aims to make you, and more importantly your guest, feel like a big-shot. And by the time you've knocked back a couple drinks, your filet mignon is served and the Bordeaux is poured, you do. Thank you, come again. ← I agree, Hy's/Mortons/Ruth Chris/et al all have the same old boys club look. To my eye, the Calgary Hy's looks more faded and dingy than usual. BTW, there was some talk at lunch that Calgary is the original Hy's. Any truth to that?

It wasn't my choice, honest! We were meeting a client who works right across the street, and we were limited for time, so Hy's was the only option that worked.

Merlin, Rouge ended up being a bust. Details Here Next time, The Belvedere, Taetro or Catch.

My last three meals, part of my latest Vancouver-Calgary-Vancouver whirlwind trip: Dinner on Wednesday night at CinCin. We were booked to dine at Teatro in Calgary, but ice fog and memories of an airplane skidding of the runway in Calgary last week compelled my bosses from Toronto and I to stay in Vancovuer an extra night. We showed up at 8:30pm with no reservation, and were seated in about 15 minutes. Service was very professional, but after last weekend at West, the bar has been raised very high indeed. We all chose to forgo the DOV menu and instead selected a-la-carte. We shared appetizers: a wonderfully sweet carpaccio, disappointing mushroom bruschetta, and grilled prawns. I had Ahi tuna for my main - it was a trifle overcooked but not bad at all, and I have, unfortunately, forgotten what accompanied the tuna. My companions had bison that was reportedly excellent. Overall a good meal, but without as much "WOW!" as sister West. I'll go back again (sober this time ), and see how it fares. Lunch on Thursday at Hy's in Calgary. Is it just me, or do many high-end steak houses have an old, dingy, 1970's-era basement feel to them? What's up with that? I also find the sight of a chef cooking meat over an giant flaming kettle drum inside a glass-walled cage very bizarre. But whatever one says about the ambiance, my filet was undeniably excellent. Moist, tender and flavourful. I had to leave early to make a meeting, so no apps or desert. Dinner Thursday night with another client at Rouge's. It's located in an old house just East of downtown and has the potential to be a much nicer room than it is. They either hired Dave Nichol as the designer or did it themselves. Service was disappointing - our waiter would regularly walk by our table but refuse to make eye contact. It didn't come across as rude, quite the opposite actually - like he didn't want to disturb or rush us, but the end result was just "slow". The food was up and down. We both started with a lobster bisque that was excellent - rich and creamy with big chunks of properly done (read not overcooked) lobster. My main course was roast duck breast marinated in kaffir lime with sage gnocchi. I don't order duck very often so I'll admit I may be unfairly critical here, but it was bland and lacked the texture I associate with duck. Oh, and the kaffir lime was nowhere to be found. The sage gnocchi on the other hand was quite interesting. Desert was a molten chocolate cake (that was not molten) and orange sorbet. On deck: dinner at C tomorrow and lunch at HSG on Monday.

Five minute major for a $5 tip? Lifetime imprisonment and/or Dangerous Offender status seems more appropriate...

Thanks to everyone for making suggestions. I had decided to try The Belvedere, and even had the reservations made, when my client said she wanted to go to Rouge. The customer is always right, so we're going to Rouge. I'll post a mini-review when I get back on Friday.

I agree with you, Neil - West is our new special place. No one has yet mentioned how wonderful the beetroot and arugula pesto salad was - WOW. I would have happily traded the goat cheese tart for anoth scoop of the salad! Also, special thanks to my table-mates for a most enjoyable evening.

I'm taking a client out for dinner in Calgary on Thursday night, and need some suggestions on a great restaurant. There are a couple of restrictions: it needs to downtown, and since I don't know this client well, I'd like to stick to a "safe" cuisine i.e. Italian, Mediterranean, French, rather than Indian or Japanese. Price is not a concern (I'm really going to miss my expense account!). Any suggestions?

Before we all begin gushing about how wonderful the food was, and raving about the terrific service, I wanted to make sure we said a proper THANKS to you, Peppyre. You must have put a ton of work into the event tonight for it to have run so smoothly. I'm sure I speak for everyone else here when I say kudos to you, and a big thank you from all of us happy eGulleteers!

I will occasionally serve this beer with chocolate for desert. Right after a mouthful of chocolate, take a drink of the beer and the cherry flavour in the beer explodes in your mouth.

Thanks for the post, Sean. Interesting insight.

Fair enough, Andrew. Everyone has an off-night. "What is veal"????? How do you keep a straight face when someone asks you that?

Not sure if it's OK to reply in this thread, given that I'm not an insider. If I'm out of line, please forgive me. I hear you, Young One. No question that DOV pushes a FD place outside of the comfort zone. I guess my real beef with Bis was that it just didn't feel like anyone was trying very hard. The food wasn't bad, just very mediocre. The staff weren't bad, just disinterested. It seemed like everyone from the kitchen to the FOH mailed it in last night. If it looked like the staff were busting their asses, I'd be the first one to agree that we shouldn't be too hard on them. Sh*t happens, it was firt night of DOV, I can deal with that. It just didn't look like that last night. I'm sure I'd go stir crazy cooking or serving the same three appetizers and the same three mains every night for 2 weeks. And I'm sure that dealing with the "107" tables that show up is frustrating. But that's the price a restaurant pays to participate in DOV. If a particular establishment doesn't want the hassle, or isn't willing to make the effort to make a positive impression given the circumstances, then don't participate. I don't mean that to sound as harsh as it does, honest. I guess I just believe that if you're going to do something, do it right. This is an interesting thread, and again I apologize if I'm butting my head in where it's not welcome. Best of luck to all the insiders here. I'm looking forward to sampling the fruits of your labours over the next couple of weeks.

That's a tough question to answer, Winegeek. I was certainly underwhelmed by our evening there, but perhaps they had an off night? I hesitate to write off a place because of one bad experience. Everyone deserves a second chance. I was reading the DOV Insider's View thread and to a certain extent I agree with Young One's comment that we should not be too harsh in judging a place during DOV. I have several relatives in the restaurant business (owners, FOH and in the kitchen), so I understand what an event like DOV can do to the regular flow of a place. But speaking as a customer, if I'm going to an event designed to bring new potential customers into a restaurant, and said restaurant cannot do things like properly space out their seatings so dozens of people are not kept waiting long past their reservation time, or have enough staff working to properly service the tables, well then I start to be less sympathetic. I guess I should give Bis Moreno the benefit of the doubt, based on the fact that last night was the first night of DOV. They opened in 2003, I think, so I assume this year in their second DOV? Perhaps they had more people than they expected, and without several years expereience to draw on, they made some wrong assumptions about the event. With a few more nights of DOV under their belts, perhaps it will get better...? OTOH, from the reviews of Rain City Grill and West here already, there's no shortage of other fine dining restaurants in this city to patronize. Heaven knows the restaurant business is brutally darwinian, and if Bis Moreno can't get it right on the opening night of an event as important as DOV, the perhaps you should take your business elsewhere. My apologies for this rambling, stream-of-conciousness post. We may give Bis another chance, but it won't be for a long time. There's just too many other places to eat in this city that we'd rather try. Like the old saying goes, you never get a second chance to make a first impression.

My wife and I dined at Bis Moreno tonight, too. We arrived at 8:30 - sounds like we missed you by only a few minutes, Lorna! I had: Arugula salad with baby octopus, wild boar bacon, and vine ripened tomatoes with a lemon vinagrette, Cod filet with roasted red pepper farro in a parmesan broth gingerbread with roast apples, chantilly cream My wife had: House-made spinach and tomato ravioli with porcini and tomato sauce Pork cheeks with candied root vegetables Red wine poached pear stuffed with white chocolate mousse with a dark chocolate and gorgonzola sauce Overall, very disappointing. Nothing was really bad, but nothing came close to our expectations of a restaurant of this calibre. A few ingredients were of poor quality (mealy tomatoes in my salad, for example), and a few things were missing altogether (no trace of gorgonzola in the sauce on my wife's poached pear). We would agree with Lorna's opinions expressed earlier, with the addition that most dished were, to our palattes, overly salty. Lorna, did you find the ravioli a little mushy? We felt the dish would have benefitted from some more texture. Service was generally indifferent, and unlike Lorna's experinece, we were shown the bottles and offered a little bit of information about the wines (we had the matching flights for all three courses). My wife enjoyed the Township 7 Merlot but I can't offer any firsthand experience with that - I was driving so I skipped that flight. The Silver Sage Pinot Blanc with desert was very heavy on the pear flavour, IMHO, but I'm still suffering from a cold so your mileage may vary. I'd sum up Bis Moreno by saying "Big Hat, No Cattle". The place looks gorgeous, right down to the servers who look like they should be wonderful but have no flow at all (and who all honestly match the decor - were they hired by the designer?), but that's where the story ends. Kind of like a trophy wife - looks good, but once you scratch the surface there's nothing there. One other thing: A big crowd arrived at the door around 8:40 (the late seating was for 8:45). Most everyone waited at least 20 minutes for their table, and the last group waited at least half an hour. We had arrived early and were seated right away, thank heaven. Given that we are both sick, there is no way we'd have waited that long for the restaurant to honour our reservation. Is this common during DOV? Is the key to arrive 15 minutes early?

I just came back from lunch at Feenie's. Of course I had to have the burger! It was OK - not bad, not great, just OK. They didn't ask me how I wanted it cooked, and delivered it medium rare. Am I just being picky to expect the burger done to my taste at a place like Feenie's? Good sesame seed bun, nice and fresh and properly sized to match the patty. The meat had a touch too much onion for my taste, but was otherwise OK. Tete Carre, glad to hear your experience at Harlow's was better than mine. I live a few blocks away from them, so I'd be very happy to see your experience being the norm for this restaurant.

ROFLMAO!!!

For lunch today, Go Fish! My usual halibut and chips, but I was also tempted by the soup: Coconut Seafodd Chowder with basil and kaffir lime. Nothing like a steaming bowl of soup while sitting in the rain watching the fishing boats. Dinner out on Saturday night was at the Sandbar. I had the sea bass (so-so) and my wife had the black cod (excellent). No appys or desert as we had theatre tickets and were running late. And finally, Sunday evening, a burger at Vera's, which I posted about in the Burger Club thread.

What makes a Chicago Hot Dog a "Chicago Hot Dog"? From Keith's post, it seems to be the toppings, i.e. any old hot dog can become a Chicago Hot Dog with the right fixin's. Is there a special kind of weiner? Inquiring minds want to know...

Yes, it comes with fries that IIRC seem to be frozen, out-of-the-bag Sysco fries. I don't know if you can get onion rings or not. Definately still there. We live nearby and tried their burgers last summer. Stale bun and my recollection was that the burger was overcooked and tasted like a pre-made frozen grocery store burger. That being said, I'm willing to give it another shot if the rest of the Burger Club wants to go. And I'd vote for adding Moderne to the list, as I wasn't around when the first Burger Club met. Good suggestion to visit them last......

As I sit here, sleepless at 1:30am with a raging cold and a pounding headache, what pops into my head but a place for burgers that I don't recall being mentioned in this thread. Proof positive that Sudafed and herbal tea do strange things to the brain. The Fairmont at the Vancouver Airport makes a great portobello mushroom burger. They serve it on a square bun which they, regretably, butter on top and bottom but is quite tasty. The 'shrooms are excellent and the patty is prety good, too. Definately worth adding to the Burger Club circuit, IMHO. Back to my kleenex box now. Goodnight all!

Thanks for looking that up for, Steve. I really should have Googled that myself. I'll post my comments when I'm back from Calgary and let you know how it's holding up today. When I grew up in Edmonton back in the seventies and early eighties Peters always was on top, 30 years later it still is on top, I have not been there for twenty years so I can not say what it is like today, but a search proved it is still Calgary's FAV. steve ←

I've never been a fan of the seasonings they use in a Licks burger, and I've found the quality is a bit hit-and-miss depending on the location. You sometimes get Beavis and Butthead cooking and the burger suffers. WRT White Spot, I couldn't agree more. I visited White Spot when I first started coming to Vancouver on business 6-7 years ago, then tried it again when we arrived here last summer. Most disappointing. On the subject of White Spot, what's with the sauce thing (can't rememebr what they call their "secret sauce")? Why make such a big deal about it? There must be a story behind that - can anyone enlighten me? Edited to add: Stovetop, where is Peters Drive Inn in Calgary? I'm visiting there next week and would like to give them a try.

No worries, Andrew. I'll just bump up the thread after DOV.

It sounds to me like we have general agreement to wait until after DOV (not to mention waiting till the dust settles regarding the "legality" of actually meeting off-line ). Lack of money and an excess of weight are both problems I can sympathize with. Exception happily made for burgers at HSG with you, Deborah. Hypothetically, of course. Oh, and FIV, I'm with you - if meeting becomes illegal, the burger will be that much more delicious. Arne, love the avatar. Thanks for the laugh - it was much needed after wading through that Policy thread.