Bistro Wagon Rouge

A good friend of mine treated me to Bistro Wagon Rouge for my birthday this week. Lucky lucky! Lots of interesting neighbours nearby including The Pie Shoppe.

Our waiter was really good at describing/selling the menu items, so you'll want to be careful actually not to get too carried away by ad copy.

Complimentary Bread

A nice retro touch you don't see much anymore. Warm, and butter softened for convenience.
Really handy if you order moules frites (mussels and fries) to get at the tasty soup.

2018-Jul-11 Bistro Wagon Rouge - complimentary bread

House Burger ($18)

Touted as the best in Vancouver so obviously I had to try it.
Composition is nothing too adventurous. Sweet caramelized onions were a nice touch.
Fries were great - hot and and fresh, very crispy on the outside. Could have used something more sour as a dip to balance the heaviness of the meal though.
When they asked how I wanted my burger I went with medium rare and you can see from the pictures it did come out basically so though the center looks quite rare.
Very tender and juicy burger. And not being a big meat or burger connoisseur I'd have to guess that by "best burger" it's not in the interesting-ness of the burger but rather the really good patty inside.
At $18 it's pretty steep but it's a thick patty and a filling meal overall.

2018-Jul-11 Bistro Wagon Rouge - house burger

2018-Jul-11 Bistro Wagon Rouge - house burger medium rare

Asparagus ($12)

Always curious about ways to make asparagus tasty so I was sold on it by the description of the compound butter.
Turns out... this tastes like asparagus with just some butter on it. Whatever subtleties in the special didn't really come through for me.
And at $12... pass.

2018-Jul-11 Bistro Wagon Rouge - asparagus

Moules Frites

My friend's order. I got to try some of the thai curry (one of the options) and it was good.

House Made Lavender Lemonade ($4)

Lavender flavour in a not-too-sharp and not-too-sweet lemonade. Pretty decent.
The slice of lemon might fall sideways and block the flow of the drink so you might want to pull that out.

2018-Jul-11 Bistro Wagon Rouge - Housemade Lavender Lemonade

Pretty busy shortly after 6pm. Not many tables in the small place but bar seating is possible for dinner. Confident, pleasant, and not-pushy waitstaff.

Comments

Trafalgar's European Explorer 2006 memoirs part 3

A picture from my 2006 trip, a Trafalgar 's bus tour, on an itinerary called the European Explorer. I can't remember why I had this couple in the picture, but I do vaguely remember this to be in London, on the first official day of the tour group getting together. Their insistence on my helping them take a picture caused the three of us to be late getting back to the bus. The local tour guide had a "rule" about lateness, that we had to buy chocolate to share with everyone. As it turned out, later in the trip, on at least two occasions, we were stuck on the highway on either a long commute or a traffic jam, and I had chocolate and chocolate-covered marzipan to share. About the chocolate-covered marzipan -- Apparently we were in Austria just as they were celebrating Mozart's birthday with special marzipans wrapped in foil with the famous composer's picture. I'm pretty sure it was Mirabell Mozartkugeln . Anyway, there were enough to go around the en

Trafalgar's European Explorer 2006 memoirs part 10

The last of my pictures (at least the ones that survived the cheesy disposable cameras) from my 2006 trip, a Trafalgar 's bus tour, on an itinerary called the European Explorer. Below is the obligatory group photo. Not sure everyone's in it, actually. I'm pretty sure this one was taken by the tour director, Mike Scrimshire as I'm in the back row, on the right side.

Trafalgar's European Explorer 2006 memoirs part 9

More assorted couples on my 2006 trip, a Trafalgar 's bus tour, on an itinerary called the European Explorer. An American couple who joked about being from "the land of the giants" -- and with good reason, because both of them were really tall! A cute Jewish mother-daughter pair who ducked out part-way to divert to Israel. I vaguely remember the issue of the daughter being an orthodox Jew was highlighted in France when, to make things easy, she just declared herself vegetarian for the wait staff. I also remember there was some logistics error in France because our party size was way underestimated or simply relayed incorrectly, and there was a shortage of food at dinner. Dessert came as an unopened can of yogurt. It did not seem like they tried to make it up to us later, either. Plus there was smoking every which way in France, and I had a helluva time with that. We were also in a hotel that seemed tucked away in the burbs, and not walking distance from anythin

Life in the Lower Mainland (BC, Canada)

Search This Blog