But, I have been eating! Here’s a drive-by review of some memorable ones…

Downtown: Thierry Patisserie – I have been a regular at this lovely French cafe since they opened a few months back. Good coffee but the pastries, desserts, and macarons are what this place is all about. My faves: The apple turnover, layers of flaky delicate crust filled with tart and sweet apples – perfect. The blackberry macaron, with a actual blackberry in the middle it’s the perfect texture and flavour contrast in these cookies that are beautiful, but quite sweet. For chocolate lovers, the chocolate succé cake is dense, rich, and full of chocolate. I only needed 1 bite, but it was a good bite. Prices are a more than your average cafe, but worth it in most cases. However, I cannot grasp how 100g of candied maple pecans can cost $14.95. Or how a small tub of ice cream can cost $14.95. But then six lemon madelines for $6 is pretty good! Make sure you look at the price for no surprises.

Downtown: Bel Cafe – When David Hawksworth opens a cafe, you run to it! I did. Although, I walked into the cafe distracted and manged to look like a complete ditz right in front of David Hawksworth – not one of my better moments. However, is the food good. A crispy ham and cheese sandwich like no other and a smooth roasted tomato soup made a memorable lunch. And the macarons, despite being everywhere now, are quite tasty. The outside macron layer just shatters when you take a bite and the flavours (ie. black sesame seed and yuzu, raspberry and rosewater) are interesting and delicious. Again, expect to pay restaurant prices at the cafe, but the food you get is worthy.

Downtown: Hawksworth Restaurant, visit #2 – I was at Hawksworth for a second visit this week and it was a great dinner. Service was much improved from my first visit as well. I just LOVED my salad – pear, speck, burrata, and greens, which came beautifully plated on a wooden board. Amazing combination.

Downtown: My daily lunch spot is now Italian Kitchen 2 Go. A tasty sandwich with a fresh salad for $6.50? Best deal anywhere. They also have great pastas, and pizza. The line-ups are long, but the staff is fast and efficient.

Downtown: RIP amazing chorizo sandwich from La Brasserie Street – You know, I enjoy the now famous La Brasserie Chicken Sandwich, but I just LOVED their new sandwich of chorizo, arugula, roasted red peppers, and spicy tomato sauce. It was so delicious, saucy, and included vegetables! I just can’t bring myself to have a vegetable free lunch on most days. Sadly, so many people demanded the chicken sandwich that this amazing chorizo never stood a chance. They phased out the chorizo for chicken after a couple weeks. *sigh*

Kitsilano/Point Grey: La Ghianda – Keeping to the trend of “great restaurant opens a cafe,” La Ghianda is also a good one. From the owners of the excellent La Quercia is La Ghianda, an excellent Italian style deli and cafe. Go there for the huge Italian sandwiches (mortadella, mmmm), or made to order pastas.

South Granville: Go Fish 2.0 – Part of my summer is at least 1 long line-up and feast at the Go Fish shack by Granville Island. But a second Go Fish location is now open! This version is Go Fish restaurant style, in the former Bin 942 location on Broadway near Granville. I attended a menu tasting while back and it was excellent. My best memory was really the passion I saw in the chefs creating the food. They spoke about all the menu items with such zest and enjoyment – love that! The menu is different from the fish shack location. The fish and chips are still there, but the tacones are not. There are appetizers, mains, and desserts. I loved the “chips and dip” – a great little snack. Lots of Latin-influenced flavours on the menu. Definitely worth a visit.

Main St: Bob like Thai Food – Someone at work tipped me off on this place, telling me it was the most authentic Thai food they’d eaten since being in Thailand. With an endorsement like that, I ordered takeout from them that night. And I’ve ordered it again and again since. A menu with the usual items plus lots of interesting and authentic dishes you don’t see at other Thai restaurants. The pad thai is awesome. It’s different from the amazing Maenam pad thai, but just as good. With lunch specials for $7.50, it’s an affordable, yummy option. My friend just raves about the mango sticky rice, too.  The restaurant itself is super casual (but cold!).

Happy eating.

I finally got to Suika last week and it’s great. Kingyo is still better (and always will be, as long as their seared saba pressed sushi is on the menu), but Suika is a more casual and better priced sister restaurant that I expect to frequent regularly.

The yummy factor:

- Pressed toro and avocado sushi. Toro on its own is buttery and fresh. Pressed down with avocado it melts on your tongue and is even more delicious.

- Beef filet & garlic fried rice. Tender cubes of beef tossed with rice and lots of crispy fried garlic. Satisfying, but you definitely need gum after this one.

- Plum marinated Ika Karaage – Loved the plum marinate, give the Ika a delicious flavour. The breading on the squid was a bit greasy and texture tough…but still tasty. Would probably try the chicken next time

- Tofu salad – Cold tofu, fresh greens, tasty sweet and spicy dressing. Tofu can be good.

- Agedashi tofu – comes with two big pieces of crispy fried shrimp, all sitting in a warm sauce for dipping

A fun room too – dark lighting, a projector playing on the bar wall, a fun sake/booze bottle chandelier, and open kitchen.

You can go to Suika for a quick bite or  spend an evening with a group of friends. Most izakayas are located downtown, so Suika is a welcome restaurant just across the bridge. It’s also near the Arts Club Theatre and a great spot for dinner before a show.

Suika
1626 West Broadway (@ Fir), Vancouver
604 730 1678

They restaurant did a great job with the room, turning it from its former life as a dark casual Irish pub to a light, airy, and natural setting. Really beautiful wood light fixtures and natural light streaming through the back room. A great setting for a get together or date.

My date for the evening was a girlfriend, and together we sampled:

- Dungeness crab and chickpea toast – A creative and fun dish. The toast is a rounded mold of toasted brioche that is so thin and crispy that it shatters into crispy pieces when your spoon hits it. Mixed with the crab and chickpeas, you have fresh, texture, and spice in every bite. A lovely dish.

- Warm steelhead and crunchy potato salad – So beautiful when presented, with the beautiful pink salmon, yellow potatoes, green herbs, and a white horseradish dressing. The taste was good, but not as good as it looked. I wanted to taste the salmon more, but got much more horseradish, herbs and pickled garlic…and not much potato either.

- Steamed halibut with Indian spices and chickpea fritters – perfectly cooked and delicious.

- Apple and olive cake for dessert – quite creative, but not my favourite. There was an awesome green apple granita with the cake, but it was soaked in this syrup that was way too sweet for my liking.

Overall, this restaurant has it going on. Nice menu, good service, and a nice bar area if you want a before/after dinner drink. It’s a nice change from going to Boneta and I will always expect an interesting menu when I go. Nice addition to this area of Gastown, which is mainly pubs and casual restaurants.

L’abbatoir
217 Carral Street,Vancouver
604 568 1701

Hawksworth is a fresh addition to the Vancouver dining scene, featuring a gorgeous room, beautiful food, plus an even more stunning clientele. This is the restaurant where you put on that killer dress you’ve been saving up and work it.

First, the good:
- I love the room. It’s contemporary with a huge glam factor and overlooks the Vancouver Art Gallery, one of the city’s most beautiful buildings.
- The beautiful restaurant and bar are just asking for you to dress up. The people watching here is excellent.
- A great cocktail list – Plan for a before dinner drink at the bar and watch the bartenders craft some beautiful drinks. I am not drinking alcohol at the moment, and they had several “zero proof” cocktails for me too.
- Playful plates. For every dish we ordered, the plates came out colourful, composed, and playful. I truly enjoyed the plating for all dishes. You eat with your eyes first, after all.
- From the bar menu:  thick cut, triple fried  frites, soft and tender inside with a crispy exterior.
- The Foie Gras Parfait – a delicious, must-have appetizer. Great texture, flavour, and the best part – it comes with foie gras cotton candy!
- Yellowfin tuna carpaccio – fresh, generous slices of yellowfin with a perfectly balanced sauce and crispy puffed rice
-Seared scallops with a housemade xo sauce – perfectly cooked with sweet, salty, spicy flavours
- Tender, tender pork loin cooked sous vide with spatzle
- Flaky and moist olive oil poached salmon with mild Indian flavours and an eggplant caviar tinted black with squid ink
- And I didn’t order this, but I sure wish I did – a 22oz rib eye to share. Every order that came out of the kitchen looked so good and tender.
- The restaurant also offers a great bar menu and brunch/lunch menus, so there’s something for all occasions.

However.

My first Hawksworth experience was not perfect, so I need to detail my issues. But, I am giving them some benefit of the doubt as they are newly opened and I was there at 8pm on a Saturday night – the place was packed.

The drawbacks:
- I was really disappointed with the service. Our waiter was nice, but clearly too busy and there was no personalized service at all. For a restaurant of this caliber, that is unacceptable. It took 20 minutes for our drinks to be served after we were seated, and another 20 minutes before they returned to take our order. Coffees arrived after our desserts were served. A friend ordered a cocktail that she did not like and it sat at our table throughout the entire dinner, full. When the mains were cleared the waiter picked it up, asked if she was done with it and walked off. What?!! My friend said not to say anything, or I would have.

- Dessert was a miss. Most people at our table had the milk chocolate mousse with passion fruit. Sounds delicious, but the milk chocolate was way too subtle for the tart passion fruit, which overwhelmed it. Pretty plate, but unbalanced flavour. I’ll order a different dessert next time.

- And my nit-pick issue. There is carpet in the centre of the dining room, where we were seated. It’s a nice carpet, but there’s one problem. The chairs don’t slide gracefully on the carpet. Getting in/out of the chair turned into a slightly awkward occasion.

So, let’s return to the good as my overall experience at Hawksworth was wonderful. Great food, glam room, and fun people watching. I can’t think of another restaurant in Vancouver with a combination quite like this. Go, dress-up, and enjoy.

Hawksworth Restaurant
801 West Georgia Street inside the Rosewood Hotel Georgia (@ Howe)
604.673.7000

Blogger’s note: I title this blog “Vancouver Good” because I like to only write about the good things in Vancouver. Overall, I really liked Hawksworth and look forward to many future visits. I had to highlight some drawbacks this time or I would have felt uneasy making the recommendation when I did experience some negatives.

First, I love how the Loden Hotel renovated the restaurant formerly known as Voya into Tableau – an urban, French bistro feel, a la Balthazar in NYC. They’ve also added an outdoor patio for afternoon lunches and drinks.

I’ve only been for lunch, but the food was excellent. A nicely cooked halibut cobb salad with fresh greens and a mild blue cheese. Or the quintessential bistro dish, steak frites – sliced steak drizzled with a red wine sauce. You also get a lovely salad with the dish, which makes having steak and fries for lunch much healthier. Portions are a little small, but you don’t leave the restaurant hungry.

The website also says takeout is coming soon. This excites me – as a new mom, I am eating at home more so having access to quality takeout food will be a treat.

The restaurant was bustling at lunch with a diverse crowd, including lots of business meetings – this is a great expense account restaurant.

The restaurant scene in this part of downtown isn’t great, so it’s nice to see Tableau here. I hope it does well.

Tableau Bar & Bistro
1181 Melville Street (@Bute)
Vancouver
604-639-8692

The menu at Bishop’s changes regularly to reflect what’s in season, but the menu is always a selection of mouthwatering local food. My last visit was a couple weeks ago with a girlfriend – my first “real” dinner out without my little baby boy. Bishop’s was celebrating their 25th anniversary and we gave their special menu a try. At $49 for 4 course, it was an excellent deal.

The four-course anniversary menu:

- A salad of winter greens and walnuts with soft, crispy, and warm goat’s cheese. The arrangement of the winter greens was artistic – a beautiful looking and tasting plate.

- A soft dungeness crab cake topped with crispy threads of potato and fennel and a fennel cream. The perfect balance of textures and fresh crab.

- Two preparations of meltingly tender fraser valley lamb with precisely cut root vegetables and a red wine jus

- For dessert, “Death by chocolate” – a dense, ganache-like slice of chocolate surrounded with a delicious raspberry coulis.

In addition to the anniversary menu, the amuse for the evening was a smooth chicken liver pate on a crisp potato chip. The evening ended with a sweet and crisp coronation pear cut by John Bishop himself. He knows how to make a simple pear look gorgeous.

Entrees off the a la carte menu usually range from the high $20s to mid $40 dollar range. Not cheap, but worthy for a special night out.

The room is simple and tastefully decorated. The restaurant is busy, but never too loud and the tables are spaced apart well. You can have a quiet meal and great conversation with your dinner companions without overhearing everything from the table next to you.

I’ve also been cooking out of John Bishop’s Fresh recently, with great success. My food from the cookbook always tastes good, but doesn’t look quite as polished. If you want Bishop’s food – the rustic version, make it at home. For the full polished experience, make a reservation at the restaurant and enjoy.

Bishop’s Restaurant
2183 W. 4th Ave (@ Yew)
604 738 2025

Now, I hate waiting for a table. In fact there seems to be an annoying trend these days where waiting is expected – Cafeteria, L’abbatoir, Nook, and Bao Bei are all surely fabulous restaurants that I haven’t gotten around to trying yet because they don’t take reservations! But I’ll do it for Vij’s. I’m not exactly sure why, but it has to do with your overall experience.

First, everyone waits at Vij’s – no exceptions. Second, you are well taken care of while you wait – split a bottle of wine with friends and catch-up while noshing on the delectable appetizers passed around by Vij’s staff. This is how I became addicted to the cassava fries, which are thankfully are featured in Vji’s first cookbook. Or, put your name down and go for a walk around the South Granville neighbourhood, or catch-up on reading at Chapters. When I go to Vij’s, I am expecting the wait, so I make sure I’m not starving upon arrival, and I only go with people I’m willing to have a long conversation with. This past Friday, we waited close to 3 hours before eating – a lot of talking with friends was done!

And, the wait is worth it. Truly. Here’s what we enjoyed on Friday:

• The appetizers as we waited: hot and crispy pakoras, those addictive cassava fries, rich fried poori bread, and wheat crisps with a refreshing mung bean salad
• Vij’s signature dish: lamb popsicles in a creamy fenugreek curry with spinach and potatoes. Incredibly tender rack of lamb deliciously doused in the creamy sauce. I don’t think this dish ever leaves the menu as it’s too popular
• A subtly spiced mashed eggplant and butternut squash with chapati and a lentil curry
• Marinated salmon pieces atop zucchini slices and a chickpea cake with crisp green beans and a spicy coconut curry. The salmon was so flavourful with the spicy curry
• Unbelievably tender beef short ribs slathered with a luscious yogurt, fenugreek, and cumin curry
• Way too many plates of that delicious naan bread. Mmmm.

The portions are generous, the service professional, and the atmosphere surprising relaxed for such a busy restaurant.

When I’m in the mood to catch up with friends over a long evening of drinks and food, Vij’s is often a great option. It’s built in quality time with friends with the pay-off of a memorable meal. But do expect to wait, or show up really early to get the first sitting at 5:30pm. But who wants to eat that early?! Eat the appetizers, drink some cocktails, and enjoy the Vij’s food experience, wait included.

Vij’s
1480 W. 11th Ave (@Granville)
604-736-6664

Can’t say I have ever been to a Franco-German restaurant before this one, but doesn’t the idea sound awesome? Take the best classic French bistro dishes combined with the best German food and you have a menu with steak tartare, mussels & fries, steak frites, homemade bratwurst and saurkraut, and schnitzel. Yum.

My first visit was a Sunday evening for a quick dinner of rotisserie chicken and frites for me, and the homemade bratwurst for the hubby. The chicken was huge – an entire half chicken on the bone, extremely moist and “chickeny.” The frites were super crispy and salty and lovely dunked into the housemade ketchup and mayo. The bratwurst came with sauerkraut and mashed potatoes – also delicious, but the flavours were a bit more muted than expected. When you think bratwurst and sauerkraut you think really punchy flavours, but it was much milder here. Perhaps to cater to the masses.

Overall, it was a great first visit and I’m looking forward to trying another dinner and the weekend brunch menu next time I want some gourmet comfort food.

La Brasserie
1091 Davie Street
604.568.6499
No reservations

Highlights:

• Lightly cooked asparagus with a runny poached egg, garlic, anchovy, and light olive oil. Fresh and rich without being too heavy
• Spinach and ricotta raviolo with a hazelnut butter sauce. Perfectly cooked pasta and so good with the nutty butter sauce.
• Fettuccine Bolognese – if this is on the menu of an Italian restaurant, I order it. It’s one of my “test” dishes, so to speak – I went through a 1-month period where I made about 10 different bolognese recipes at home. Lupo’s version is great. Meaty, rich & flavourful, clinging to fresh pasta.  The way it should be. I’m bringing my husband back to try this one.
• Sablefish with spinach, grappa, and orange marmalade. I didn’t try this dish, but a few people around the table raved about it
• The dessert list is seasonal but traditional, featuring gelato, tiramisu, panna cotta, and tarts. My tiramisu was excellent – creamy with a nice edge of liquor and coffee.

Located in a beautiful heritage house (formerly Villa Del Lupo – read the back story here), I love the setting. The inside is quite modern with clean lines and colours. The upstairs provides a nice space for a private party or group event. Just watch out for the washrooms – unlocking the doors are tricky!

Around my table of 8 people, everyone loved the meal. A few people felt the portions were a bit on the small side, so plan to order 2-3 courses for dinner…as they do in Italy!

The food brought me back to my trip to Italy last year. Great flavour, but simple and seasonal. My kind of food.

Lupo Restaurant
869 Hamilton Street (b/w Smithe & Robson)
Vancouver
604.569.2535

First, the food – an interesting menu, all dishes executed wonderfully:

• Salade de Baies, lightly dressed greens atop a silky sheep feta and fresh berries
• Les coquilles st. jacques – perfectly tender and seared scallops with smoked bacon and pickled vegetables
• Grilled ostrich with sweet onions and potato crisps. Some of the most tender ostrich I’ve ever had
• Moules Frites – some of the best in town. I love the Congolaise, mussels cooked with tomatoes, coconut cream, chilli, and cilantro. The frites are crisp and dusted with a smoked paprika. And also order some freshly baked bread for soaking up mussel broth.
• As good as all our food was, the dessert made the meal. We shared the “Le Cafe Belge,” a creamy espresso cheesecake topped with layers of chocolate mousse, cream, and crispy chocolate wafers. SO GOOD. Not too sweet and a perfect balance of chocolate & coffee, crisp and creamy textures. I’ll remember this dessert for a while.

One Vancouver restaurant trend I’m liking is the filtering and carbonating of their own water, rather than flying in “gourmet” bottles of sparkling water from New Zealand or other far off places. Our sparkling water was unlimited and just $2.00 – a big difference from the $6-10 charged for Pelligrino at many restaurants.  While it does not help their profit margin much, it’s a much better environmental choice. I know Boneta also does this.

Service at Chambar is always great. Professional, relaxed, and fun. It’s always lovely dining at Chambar – I’ll be back again sooner next time.

Chambar Restaurant
562 Beatty Street (@ Dunsmuir)
Vancouver
604 879 7119