Wine and Roses

highly anticipated by who?

listening to the food and wine show on cfun today, always pretty good show. the guys who own coast and global were on talking about their new italian restaurant beside tiffany's on alberni street. they were giving advice on opening restaurants. i suppose they can as they have been pretty successful but the one owner, imad? sure sounded pretty full of himself. they said the restaurant is going to have 180 seats with a tile floored gazebo in the front and a formal dining room in the back. downstairs will be a bar called d.o.c., i wonder if people will call in DOC? does anyone besides hotel guests eat in that area?

Back again for dinner, this is definitely our favourite new restaurant and we loved it as always although I would have to say that with this being the first time we were in that Andre wasn't cooking, the food was not quite as good.

I understand that lovely Robert the wine guy was turfed out to make room for the new maitre'd who needed a larger territory to pee on. We thought Robert was wonderful and have only eaten there once since that guy fom Lumiere started (feel free to read between the lines!) Anyone know where Robert is working now?

Mrs. W & R tried La Buca and concur, excellent meal. Good value and I also concur on the Senova location. What a great place that would be for La Buca, perfect for the neighbourhood and the sensibilities of the West Sider's. Senova, if it belongs anywhere, which I actually don't think it does, belongs on commercial drive where the diners are a bit more adventurous.

DOV - Culinary Boxing Day Sale. I love it!

I wanted to really "try" out some restaurants, not just use Dineout to get into the trendy places, so I went through the entire list, read all the menus, checked out the web-sites and short listed where I wanted to dine. Many of these choices were not the popular choice so it was interesting, sort of like the way one often chooses a restaurant when they are out of town. Anyway I cut the list back a bit by going for restaurants in Vancouver, then further streamlined it to my A list (a restaurant I can actually walk home from if I want (need) to and it was still in my top 3 picks. I think this is the best menu being offered. What caught my eye wasn't the lamb dish or the truffle broth but the spag bol, well in this case strozzapreti bol. I have had this dish once at this restaurant in reality and about 10 times in my dreams. Who knew Bolognese could be so great!? This particular restaurant makes their own sauce from scratch with top quality beef tenderloin, a bit of pork for silkiness, some beautiful spices and fresh tomatoes. The beef apparently is finely chopped rather then ground and it's incredible. Anyway, here's my number one choice for dineout. La Terrazza in Yaletown Zuppa Di Funghi A medley of mushrooms stewed in a vegetable-truffle broth garnished with a goat cheese-herb crostini -- or -- Cesare Alla Romana Crisp romaine hearts and pancetta tossed in a classic caesar dressing with parmigiano reggiano -- or -- Strozzapreti Bolognese Strozzapreti pasta with a tomato meat ragú, topped with parmigiano reggiano Arista Di Agnello Roasted lamb sirloin encrusted in rosemary and grainy dijon mustard, finished in a balsamic emulsion accompanied with scalloped potato -- or -- Pesce Del Giorno Fish of the Day -- or -- Brasato Di Manzo Braised beef short ribs finished with a caramelized red onion marmalade Milk and Dark Chocolate Terrine -- or -- Vanilla Bean Crème Brulée

I requested the CC option but it did not happen. Don't get me wrong, I do appreciate the business, but if people book with a CC number, it saves me confirming and reconfirming that they will be here. It also saves from getting a bunch of "Reso Squatters". I can focus my energy on serving them a great dinner rather than spending the time chasing them down of the phone to find out if they really are coming or not. ** disclaimer ** I am a wee bit PO'd as I confirmed twice this afternoon a reso for 15 tonight and they called in a half hour before and cancelled. ← OK, if I owned a restaurant I would insist on a credit card for a party of 15 - Cancelling all 15 people, that is so rude!! I can understand someone getting sick, or losing a babysitter and dropping to 12 or even 10, but all 15!! And to all of you reading this who might have double and triple booked tables/restaurants for Dine out - Shame on you, you greedy little selfish buggers. Grow up and book responsibly!

Gave it a try on the weekend. They certainly know what they are doing based on the success of all their other places. Found it a bit expensive for what you got though, value was lacking but will give it another try in a few weeks. Paid cash so don't know what they take for paymen methods? PS - Thought the menu at Crave up on Main Street was a nice diner style menu and found it much better value.

We have dined at Rare 4 times. 3 times in the dining room, once in the lounge. On two visits the food was excellent, even superb. On another visit it was just fine and once our food was not good at all, similar to Gill, undercooked and bland. The service was also inconsistent. Sometimes excellent, sometimes just so unaware of what they were missing it was like being at Milestones. Once it was amazing service until we were cleared from our main courses then we got no service at all? We only ordered the wine flights once as we didn't like to have empty glasses while we waited for the wine for the next course. I think one or two times we were there when Chef Quang still was but Brian was also there so don't know what kind of difference it makes. We will keep going back because the good meals we had really were worth it, but might not take a visitor in case it's an off night. I guess consistency is a problem for them.

Does anyone know what the criteria was for this? 'cause I really have to question Senova getting an hon. mention. Senova? Last time I was there I had bad food and terrible service. The menu is confused with a mix of badly done peasant food and con-fusion French / Spanish / Portuguese. They chose the wrong location for the wrong restaurant and I can't imagine that the local yummy mummy's and frat dads are supporting it and those who might, drive all that way to the west side for what? Oh right, PR…which come to think of it is the same person who does NU and Century - Great job! All three restaurants that are empty day after day while getting great press - Well I suppose they will both get a few people in now but you can only survive so long on people dining at your place just once. If I were them I would rather be a restaurant that never gets reviewed and is always full!

Don't the beds require a guarrantee of $400 or $500 to be spent to secure them? A friend had to pay a deposit for them one evening. ← They actually charged for the beds!!??

C does occasionally suffer from a need to make the menu items look interesting, then trying to catch up with the dish itself. If you stick to their more simple items they can produce an excellent meal. I once had a halibut there with summer peas that was wonderful. When you start to design a menu for its impact and shock value and stop designing a menu for the taste and palate then you have to question why. Is it an overwhelming need to be different and unique at the expense of the food? Is it an owner directed mandate that the Chef must produce food that makes media write about it rather then regular clients actually enjoy eating it? I wonder what their goals are at C?

A brief review of our visit to Joey's new location on West Broadway. Called ahead, but alas they did not take reservations. Arrived about 7:00 pm to be told we would have an hour wait, “and no there were no seats available at the bar”, “and no we couldn’t stand at the bar as their liquor licence didn't allow that” (fair enough), “and yes they had a lounge but there was a wait for that as well”. All this delivered pleasantly by a group of pretty, though not over-the-top-gorgeous-or-altered young and not so young blonde hostesses. A few looking slightly overwhelmed but most seeming calm enough considering the crowd. We had both valeted our cars already, (a bargain at $4 by the way) and were curious enough to stay and wait. We being, well we, sidled up to the end of the bar as soon as we were out of eyesight where we had spotted one bar stool figuring that our two butts could hang over one side each and ordered a drink from a very efficient, attractive young female bartender. She gave us a wine list upon request, brought our drinks, then much to our surprise came around the bar, found another bar seat and brought it over. We were delighted and even more delighted when the hour wait turned out to be only 5 minutes and we were whisked away into the dining room. Our one and only complaint about the bar was that we had to pay our tab before moving to our table. A practice I find tacky, inconvenient and designed as far as I’m concerned for no other reason then to be a gratuity grab. Our server popped by as soon as we were seated, said a quick hello and told us she would be right back. When she did she was adorable! Energetic, pretty and knowledgeable. She made a few suggestions including some really fun drink specials our bartender unfortunately hadn't offered. All the staff were attentive, dressed impeccably without a belly, tattoo, butt crack or canyons of cleavage showing; made eye contact and really made the evening an enjoyable experience. The room itself was fine. Crisp lines, earth tones, good lighting - a room designed to be an attractive background, not the leading lady. Now, you might wonder why I leave the food to last? Probably because it was at best mediocre. A disappointment from the moment we opened our menus. Classic suburban mainstream. A little something for everyone though unfortunately they had pegged everyone at a lower common denominator then the savvy Vancouver diners are, they should have done their research before venturing in from the burbs! Three pastas, all vegetarian (which I thought was a good idea), a bit of steak, a bit of fish, a bit of ribs, a bit of chicken, a stir fry or two. You get the picture, a bit of everything and nothing interesting. I can’t recall the last time I looked at a menu and was this uninspired. The food, which arrived promptly, was underwhelming in taste and presentation. A chicken starter with bottled Asian sauce was undercooked; our mains were under seasoned, cooked without finesse, and decidedly unmemorable. Knowing that Joey's has a sibling connection with the Earls chain let me say that Earls has a far better menu, a much more interesting selection and I have never had a meal there that I didn't like. The wine prices at Joey’s were far higher then at Earls, drink prices about the same. The service was much better, the room better designed and more current, and the dress code was far superior at Joey’s, but all those pluses don't add up to anything without good food. Would I go back? Perhaps to sit on the gorgeous roof top patio for a couple of drinks. Would I eat there again? Probably not. Older sibling wins!