Life in the Lower Mainland (BC, Canada)

Last time I was here was in the final days of Hamid Salimian's tenure and they put out a super-inventive limited-time Middle Eastern set menu. I was mostly looking for vegetarian and gluten-free $18 Dine Out Vancouver options so Diva at the Met wasn't even on my radar, but there was interest in it from our dining group so I ended up going. No regrets -- happily surprised even! Hot chocolate was also really decent -- and yes, you can order their Hot Chocolate Festival offerings at 9:30 PM to go with dessert during a late seating dinner. Dine Out Vancouver 2015 $38 Wine Pairing is flat $15 for pairing with all three courses. Appetizer Roasted Parsnip Vanilla Bean Soup Apple Compote | Raisin Croutons | Crispy Pork Belly or Caramelized Beets & Goat Cheese Salad Candied Hazelnuts | Pomegranate and Guava Dressing or Angus Beef Carpaccio Hand Cut AAA Beef Tenderloin | Braised  Cipollini | Capers | Shaved Grana Padano  Cheese | Baby Arugula and Truffle Vinaigr

Dine Out Vancouver FOUR-Course at La Buca La Buca ("the hole") is a tiny restaurant in sort of the middle of nowhere (unless you love The Patty Shop and go there all the time). It's so small you have to go through the kitchen to get to the single (but clean and nicely appointed) bathroom. They do the best they can with the small space, but the space between tables is a bit tight and more or less ends up having a long-table community-dining feel. You can't look left or right without looking all the way down and accidentally staring at someone. If you are a misanthrope who must not have any eyes on your person, then consider a later 8 PM seating for Dine Out Vancouver when things will be quieter, and there'll be a chance of more isolated seating (there are two rows of seats and everyone got nudged into the row that didn't have a straight sight-line into the kitchen), plus there won't be a third seating spilling out from the cubicle sized coat check ar

Got an e-mail just yesterday from fan-favourited Fable Kitchen , announcing a special 5-Course Dinner by Dale Mackay, Jesse Zuber, and Fable Kitchen. Chef Dale Mackay joins Fable Friday January 30th Dale Mackay and his head chef Jesse Zuber will be executing a special 5 course dinner with Chef Trevor Bird and the Fable team.  Dale currently owns critically acclaimed Ayden Kitchen in his hometown of Saskatoon but we Vancouverites know him best from his win on the first season of Top Chef Canada and Ensemble restaurant that opened shortly after.   We wanted to be sure our past Fable diners were aware of this event since a some seats still remain available. Menu BC Dungeness Crab with lobster gelee, kaffir lime and lemongrass Steelcut Oats, mushroom and coffee Saskatchewan Dieffenbaker Trout with cauliflower, ras el hanout, red wine jus Duck Three Ways with sunchoke pave, quince, duck skin granola Apple Pie and aged Canadian cheddar Tickets are $125 which includes

It has a polished, modern, dimly lit feel like a Cactus Club. Except it's not Cactus Club because the dress code for the waitresses isn't as strictly homogenous and they haven't rigorously hired only under-25 9's and 10's. There's a casual and more open-feeling bar downstairs and the main dining room upstairs. Something that felt off -- and I don't often notice enough to comment on this -- is how the entrances are positioned in comparison to the interior. Huh? Okay, let me try to explain: First, the "bar" area downstairs. The doors look pretty much straight ahead into the bar area and some of the dining space. It's not so bad with the bar and a lot of places will actually have that, but I felt it'd be nicer if there were something to shield you from the direct sight-line. As for the upstairs area, the reception desk felt like it was too directly up the stairs. So all the way up (or down) you're watching the hostesses or they're w

From the same cafe that brought you the " Paula Dean White Trash Train Wreck " last year comes another novel Hot Chocolate Festival entry this year: "Don't Bug Me". Coconut milk 38% milk hot chocolate garnished with free-range dried crickets. Served with a 72% mini dark chocolate square. Available: January 17 - February 14. Like last year's entry, this is not so much a hot chocolate with an interesting flavour as it is a hot chocolate topped with something odd. In this case, some kind of grey whipped cream (?) on which are sprinkled a few dried crickets. And you'll appreciate having something sweet to go along with the crickets because they are really horribly bland with a wheat-like flavour . At $8.50 + GST = $8.93, it's pretty steep if your objective is just to try some dried cricket, but definitely good for the novelty and a story to tell. It's also supposed to come with a square of dark chocolate. They forgot to give it to me, so be a

It's a small restaurant with even smaller washrooms, but clean and unpretentious so you know you're not paying for renovations to make it look modern and swanky. Dine Out Vancouver 2015 menu ($18) Gluten-Free option available. APPETIZER Beet roots cutlet with fresh coconut chunks. or Jackfruit biriyani kathi roll. or Spicy Chicken and yam in cone. ENTREE Our famous lentil cakes in cashew curry. or Railway station Goat curry with cumin potato. or Fish in Bengali mustard curry. DESSERT Date palm sugar rice pudding or [Vermicelli] with raisins and cashew nuts. I totally forgot to do the gluten-free option. Probably wouldn't have gotten to try the kathi rolls if I did. Jackfruit Biriyani Kathi Roll I'm always surprised when a restaurant has items on Dine Out Vancouver which are not on their regular menu. What if you like something a lot and go back for it, to find out it's not available? In this case, it wouldn't be quite the same thin

Back to The Change Dining and Bar for lunch!  I was there last December for a special set menu  and was curious enough to go back a second time. It's almost time for Dine Out Vancouver, but if you go with a small group of maybe 4-6 persons, it might be better to just order a few things from the menu. Our bill came out to about $136 for 4 persons (or $34 each) after tax but before tip. We got to try lots of stuff, were stuffed, and had a bit left over for takeout. We had NO orders of rice. We dined at Noon and I didn't bother having dinner because I just wasn't hungry that night. The Change is very special for Chinese-food lovers who are coeliac because about 70% of their menu is gluten free. In a "typical" Chinese restaurant, wheat-intolerant persons can't even have items that use soy sauce because your "normal" soy sauce has wheat or trace amounts of gluten . The Change uses gluten-free soy sauce, so you don't have to compromise on how the

CASH only. Went there for late night (9.30pm+) snack. There were 9 of us. Staff can speak English -- and not struggle-to-understand-each-other-using-hand-gestures ESL, either. Other than overly crispy chinese donuts  (and at 9.30pm you can hardly expect everything to be totally fresh, especially bread items), menu item were fine. Basically $7.50 snacks on their late night menu. Portion size is OK, considering you are not paying for any fillers like noodles or rice with each "appetizer" portion. If you go with a few people and order a few things you can get a light dinner inclusive of one or two orders of congee or noodles for $10 including tax and tip. If you go alone, you will probably spend closer to $15 and have a more boring experience of just one or two items. If you go alone and get ONLY snacks with no filler like plain congee (rice porridge) then two plates of their snacks might not see you full at all after $15-$20. Definitely a go-with-friends place.

5:30PM on a Saturday night and the place was already about half full and with reservations on the way. I was solo, but they had some two-seat arrangements so I got a seat right away. It can look really busy and full from the outside probably because they seat people closer to the windows first, but it is a pretty big and deep restaurant, so take a chance and walk in if you don't have reservations. Roti Canai ($7 for "2 pieces") Flaky layered bread served with coconut curry sauce. Came piping hot, so probably freshly prepared. Pre-chopped up, so it's a bit odd to see it listed on my bill as "2 pcs". But there is a decent amount of it on your plate at least. Unless you go really easy on the curry, you will probably not have enough for all your roti. Since both are sweet, you can get away with using a token amount of curry with each dip. If you are also ordering a curry, you can instead save some of the roti to go with your separate curry order. The

Spacious restaurant, tons of beer, not too busy on a Sunday afternoon. I don't drink beer, so someone else can review that. The house-made patty was what caught my eye and being veggie-curious and starting to be meat-guilty, I gave it a go. Garden Burger ($13 +$1 mushrooms +$2 soup of the day) House-made nut & veggie patty, citrus aioli, onions, lettuce and tomato As burgers go, the height and size of this one is on the larger side. Tall enough that you will probably not be able to fit it in your mouth. Often veggie patties are fake-meat soy or some bean thing, so this one sounded promising with the use of nuts. A bit thin, but texture was good with the grilled crust. Sadly, the patty (and everything, including my mushroom add-on) was overpowered by the curry used. Which makes it more like a curry vegetarian burger. It's still a reasonably tasty burger overall, but don't count on nuts or veggies from your patty to make any contribution. Nicely grilled bun complete