Well, I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later. After countless enjoyable dinners out and a multitude of generally positive reviews, I finally sat through a horrible meal. Congratulations to Aurora Bistro for quashing my blind faith in the Vancouver restaurant scene.
Dine Out Vancouver offers the opportunity to sample some of the city’s best, and worst. And in the case of Aurora Bistro, it’s definitely the latter. Now in all fairness, since it was DOV tonight’s meal was not representative of the restaurant’s best work. Nevertheless, tonight’s effort seemed half-hearted at best.
We both started with the cauliflower soup with white truffle oil and almonds. Fondy took a her first spoonful of the soup and whispered “Ce n’est pas chaud!”, safely assuming that no one within earshot spoke French. I tried my soup and had to agree. It was lukewarm. Admittedly tasty, but it perhaps could have used another minute or so in the microwave.
For her main course, Fondy chose the roasted half Cornish game hen with oyster mushrooms and smoked potato gnocchi. Her chicken was excellent – juicy and hot. The smokiness of the gnocchi was so subtle I missed it entirely. They tasted fairly bland to me. I had the misfortune of ordering the Vermouth braised veal cheeks with grainy mustard pomme puree and onion fondant. It was similar in appearance to the version they serve at Pastis, almost a Shepherd’s Pie, yet wholly different in taste. This version was overdone and disappointing. Parts of the dish – the onions in particular – were stone cold. We both finished with some hospital cafeteria-worthy apple upside down cake with burnt caramel and crème fraiche.
Alex and Martin asked me how the rewrite was going. “Somewhere between it’s not and very slowly,”I truthfully replied.
And before I forget – Happy Cornchip Day!
What do you make of the whole ‘shrill and uninformed lemmings’ fan group that seems to have developed out of your comment?
It certainly is dissapointing when you have a meal at a restaurant and you know you are going to have to fork out good money for food you could probably have cooked better yourself at home.
I was searching the internet today looking for a Restaurant here in Sydney to take a number of conference delegates from the Pacific Islands to, when I came across a Restaurant of the same name in Sydney and in Vancouver.
We are taking them to Coast in Sydney and I noticed there was a Coast in Vancouver which is participating in the Dine out Vancouver promo.
Both look good on paper – maybe you could give them a try and we can compare notes! LOL
P.S did you get around to opening up the jar you recieved from the Picardo’s?
Interested to see you had a “not so good” dining experience. Glad to know my faith in bad restaurants is restored.
G’day Joe!
Are you and Paul Mullie going to be EPs on the Stargate movies?
Micky
Just when I was getting jealous of your wonderful meals out and so on, you manage to get a dud. I have to say, the meal didn’t look particularly nice.
You would have thought that they’d make at least some effort, though. DOV or not, it is a business and shoddy work is how you lose customers. The customer has certain expectations… I’m going to drop it. I’m not being at ALL subtle here.
By the way, the two parts of the negative in French surround the tensed verb. It’s “ce n’est pas” not “c’est ne pas”. In colloquial French, you can get away with “C’est pas”.
Miss H’s random French tip of the day.
Out of curiosity, don’t the restaurants find it weird that you’re taking photos of your meal?? I’m assuming that’s not take-out stuff you keep taking pictures of…
Well we knew it had to happen someday. We would log onto your blog and find out you and Fondy had a bad dining experience:(
I think you need to console yourself by crying on Carl’s shoulder and then getting a new puppy.
Carl has called you back right?
I know you’ve been writing Scifi mainly and now with writing for a show in a different galaxy, but still I wonder do ever slip in little character moments in an episode that might reflect something from your RL experiences? Was Morpheus inspired by something dreary that kept putting you to sleep? Did the scourage come from every home owners nightmare..opening a cupboard and finding a big bug peering out at you?
Just wondering.
Here’s to wishing you better dining experiences ahead.
Marla
Ah, not a good dining night. Always the worst to get hot food cold.
If you ever get the bug to cook pop over to my blog again. I’ve started posting more recipes for everyone to try.
(Windshieldbug)
(Blogger ate my comment.)
Okay, so hot food served cold is the worst. Hope tonight’s dinner is much better.
If you ever get the bug to cook try one of the recipes on my blog. I’ve started posting my menu/recipes.
Oh…Anon at the top…leave off about the Lemmings. Yeeesh! It was a (in my opinion) stupid comment from Joe the first time that doesn’t really need to be rehashed.