Breaking from "tradition" a little, hubby told me to pick a restaurant this year. So, true to form, I picked a French restaurant that had a set menu. The best part (well, for me anyways) is that nugget can now taste whatever I eat, so I get to expose it early to some yummy French cuisine!
The restaurant is a short walk from the Skytrain, and not far from Coal Harbour (where one can find many fancy restaurants). We were seated in the front corner of the restaurant. The decor is not your typical French bistro decor; it is more modern eclectic with small touches of bistro here and there (which is more present when you go further into the restaurant). The set menu had three choices each for the appetizer and main, and only two for the dessert. There is heavy seafood influence at this particular restaurant, and that was evident from the choices on the menu. In addition to the set menu, there was an oysters sharing dish that could be added. Since one of the oysters options was raw, that was pretty much out of the question, plus hubby is not really a huge fan of oysters.
For our appetizers, hubby had the charcuterie (man I miss being able to have deli meats!) and I had the cauliflower & celeriac veloute. I was wrestling between having that or the dungeness crab salad, and figured the soup would be the better option to help slowly fill my stomach. The soup was HEAVEN: so rich and smooth, and the cream with the nutmeg and shaved truffle gave a slight earthiness to the soup overall. Hubby couldn't offer me anything from his plate, but it sure looked darn tasty. He quite enjoyed it, but wasn't too happy when he discovered some large mushroom pieces in his rabbit terrine. Normally, I would've gladly stolen those from his plate!
For our mains, hubby had the grilled angus strip loin with pommes pont neuf & bernaise sauce. I had the sablefish with roasted beets, short rib ravioli & beef consomme. I was thinking of ordering what hubby had, but when he chose it, I decided to go with the sablefish. He gave me a bite of the strip loin with a little bit of bernaise sauce: YUM. Despite the waitress looking down on hubby for going fully cooked, it was still very tender and juicy, and the bernaise sauce gave an extra little hit of flavor. The pommes pont neuf (essentially thick cut fries) were quite good as well; they achieved a really nice crispness on the outside of the potatoes. My sablefish was very tasty; they achieved a nice crust on the outside and the fish was perfectly flaky on the inside. The short rib ravioli was DIVINE; the meat was so incredibly tender and flavorful.
For dessert, hubby had the strawberry shortcake and I had the red beet velvet layer cake. Hubby gave me a little bite of his shortcake, which had a very light springy cake with yummy cream. My red velvet is the first time that I've had it with beet, and it was not bad at all. The beet gives it a more earthy flavor and makes it really nice and moist. It was a bit odd having it enrobed with chocolate instead of the standard cream cheese (which they used for the layers in the cake), but it worked. The raspberry gelato was a nice finish to refresh the palate.
As we left the restaurant, we were given two heart-shaped cookies, as well as a rose. The cookies were just your standard sugar cookies covered in decorative icing; we didn't have them until the next day. Overall, a lovely experience at Tableau Bar Bistro!
Here is the meal plan for the week. Nothing too complicated, as we are pretty busy this week, and we're capping if off with a visit to the Stormcrow with a bunch of friends. Enjoy the weekend and happy cooking all!
February 23-28th
Sunday: Schnitzel, potato salad
Monday: Clam chowder
Tuesday: Tuna cheese melts
Wednesday: Cheese soup
Thursday: Ham & potato frittata
Friday: Stormcrow Tavern