les faux bourgeois

On Thursday night after picking my wife up from the airport, I decided to surprise her with dinner at Les Faux Bourgeois.

We have attempted to eat at Les Faux Bourgeois on numerous occasions but have never been able to acquire reservations that fit with our very inflexible schedules.

When we arrived the restaurant was approximately 80% full. We spoke with the hostess and we were unable to secure a table but were offered seating at the bar which offered full service dining. The restaurant is a consistently busy, so we gladly accepted.

The Bar man was very prompt as well as polite, offering us water immediately as we sat down and presented us with both the entree and wine menu. After perusing the wine menu my wife and I decided to share a bottle of the Les Brottier Cote Du Rhone.

The wine was was okay and average at best. To put this bottle of wine in a bit more perspective, Les Brottier Cote Du Rhone costs $16.00 at the BC Liquor stores and is sold for $30.00 being marked up almost 100%. In this situation you are really getting what you pay for especially with wine.

After reviewing the menu at length we decided to skip appetizers in order for us to be able to have enough room for dessert. My wife decided on the Le Cabillaud, a fresh fillet of Ling Cod, served with mushrooms, savoy cabbage, cod croquettes and manila clams and pan jus. Myself I ordered the Les Toulouse, two Toulouse Sausages served with tomato chutney, grain mustard sauce, and pommes purée. My wife did have some questions about a substitution as she does have a some health concerns that limit her diet. She requested to make a small substitution of the Cod croquettes to the Du Puy lentils and were told ABSOLUTELY no substitutions. My wife has a form of Colitis that can sometimes be debilitating and her diet plays a huge roll. However, we did understand and offered to pay for the Lentils as a side dish.

We placed our order and we were immediately served fresh sliced French baguette and continued to enjoy the wine, the ambiance and especially each others company. Our food arrived very promptly within no more than 15 minutes. My wife's entree the Le Cabillaud was excellent, with exception of the Lentils. The Lentils were very under seasoned and somewhat bland. As for my dish the Les Toulouse, this was also another hit. The Sausage was firm and the casing was crisp with the farce meat was very flavorful, a very well rounded dish. The only criticism I would offer was that the mash potatoes were ice cold, all in all, something I could easily live with.

Finally, after we devoured our food, came desert. Based on the recommendation of our server we decided upon the Creme Brulee. As fast as our waiter took our order our desert arrived. I was given the honor of the first to bite into the Creme Brulee, getting to experience the initial cracking of the hard sugar which acts like a barrier to creamy vanilla goodness that awaits. After a couple of whacks with the back of my spoon, I was through and I proceeded to take the biggest scoop that that tiny dessert spoon would allow. I was in a moment of blissful heaven when the Creme Brulee entered my mouth. The texture was sooth and velvety and was a pure delight. However, in my moments of sinful delight there was a slight problem. The flavor of the creamy vanilla goodness was interrupted by the flavor of burnt sugar. Unfortunately a small portion of the top of the Creme Brulee had bee torched to long and became burnt and bitter. AS mentioned it was a small portion of the sugar and that was not going to stop me from enjoying every last bit of the creamy delight.

On a side note, the 80% full capacity when we arrived did not change. Nor did having any available tables other than the Bar just as when when we arrived. I am unhappy to say, those seats were still empty when we left an hour and a half later. I hate when things like that happen, but hey what can you do?

Welcome to the world of the Hospitality industry.

Ratings:

FOOD: ★★★★☆
SERVICE: ★★★☆☆
PRICE: $$$

Anti Chef

Mother in Law's Birthday at the Blue Water Cafe

I do apologize, as our visit to Blue Water was some months ago and I have not been able to keep up with the Blog positing as of recent. However, My wife and I took her mother to the Blue Water Cafe for what we thought would be an enjoyable dinner for her birthday.

Let me tell you the experience we encountered at the Blue Water Cafe was nothing more than mediocre.  Frank Pabst's food was severely over priced, over complicated and the whole experience was grossly overstated.

We began our meal with the some sushi created by Sushi Master Yoshihiro Tabo.  The three of us decided upon the Stamina Roll and the Spicy Tuna Roll.  The Stamina roll consisted of fresh crab, barbecued eel, smoked salmon, sweet soy glaze, while the Spicy Tuna contained chopped albacore tuna with sesame and chili. The freshness and quality of the sushi was mediocre as was the presentation.  The Stamina Roll cost $18.50 while the Spicy tuna Roll was $10.00.   As comparison to put things in perspective, Tojo's only charges $26.00 dollars for his most expensive roll and the sushi here was absolutely no comparison.  You could find this quality, presentation and expertise in sushi at any average sushi restaurant in Vancouver.

With a full brigade of cooks, chefs and employees or total dining experience was over 2 hours.  Our reservation was for 5:45 pm and we did not leave the Blue water cafe until after 8:00 pm.  This was not due to us taking our time but from delay in between courses from our Server, nd further more the Kitchen.  The arrival of our Main courses took over an hour to arrive after our starters had been completed.

For our entrees, Plats Principaux, and or main courses, we decided on three separate menu items. My wife decided upon the West Coast Sablefish with Miso Sake glaze,  Baby Bok Choy, Edamame
Quinoa and Shiitake mushrooms, Bonito Dashi with Soy and Yuzu.  (This was my original choice but I had decided upon something different due to my wife making her choice public by announcing it to the table before me.) The flavors of the dish were complimentary and  were in fact delicious.  However, this is a menu item I have seen numerous times at numerous restaurants. I feel this preparation it is a safe and trendy choice for chefs utilizing Sable fish on there menu.  A perfect example is the creation of Rob Feenie for the Cactus Club's current menu which showcases an almost identical dish, Sake - Maple marinated Sable Fish.  You know an food item has gone main stream when it is hitting the circuit of the major restaurant chains in the Lower Mainland. Very uninspired.

For myself, I had the White Sturgeon served with Chioggia beets, pumpernickel crust, cauliflower puree
garnet beet agro dolce. This dish was a disappointment from start to finish.  I understand that Sturgeon is a very oily fish however the Sturgeon was pan seared in what appears to be 5 liters of oil and was so obviously overcooked it was dry and very, very bland.  The Pumpernickel crust did not live up to its name and was a soggy mushy coating over top the Sturgeon.  The highlight of the dish was the Cauliflower puree,  however it was cold once it arrived.

My wife's mother had the special of the evening, which was a poached fillet of Salmon, served with BC spot prawns finished over risotto and served with a Chicken and Meyer Lemon Jus.  The Salmon was cooked nicely and was tender and very fresh. However, the whole dish was very under seasoned and bland.  Nothing special to write home about with this one.

Finally, for dessert we decided to once again to have three separate menu items to share. I chose the Creme Brulee, my wife chose a Ricotta cheesecake and the mother in law chose a lemon tart.  Out of all the courses, this was by far the best, but it was still not a home run.  With having an in house Pastry Chef that was not only trained in France but has a Masters degree in Pastry, one would expect the restaurant to have signature items that were out of this world creatively, this was not the case.  The desserts were nothing more than average and somewhat of a disappointment for a chef of this caliber.  The presentation was very clinical and it felt as thought the passion for food had been lost in these dessert items.

All said and done, this entire dining experience cost me $250.00.  The Blue Water cafe in my opinion is living off a reputation and of days past and the proprietors seem to not care about the future and long term vision of the establishment. I understand Franck Pabst took home gold and won the Gold Medal Plates competition in 2008, but this in my opinion, is simply not enough to ensure long term success of the Blue Water Cafe.

Overall:

FOOD: ★★☆☆☆
SERVICE: ★★☆☆☆
PRICE: $$$$



Anti Chef

Brian Jessel Cabriolet Charity Event

On Saturday evening my wife and I attended the Brian Jessel Cabriolet Charity event in Burnaby at the Brian Jessel Show room.  This was a very high class event with the all of Vancouver's upper society attending.  I am still wondering what the hell I was doing there.

As it turns out, my wife's company is very large and it was one of the corporate sponsors of the event. This as a result, provided my wife and I free tickets to attend an event we would never had been able to afford.

The event was catered by some of Vancouver's finest restaurants, such Vij's, C, NU, Odoul's, Joey's, Joe Fortes, Elixir, Player's Chop House as well Market By Jean George just to name a few.  It was great to see Vikram Vij and Robert Clark both on site fully immersed in their craft and being their usual self's entertaining and mingling with the guests.  Each restaurant and or Chef  had an offering of Hors D'oeuvres, canapes or Amuse- gueule ( which literally means means 'gob amuser' but is translated more delicately as 'palate pleaser').

Players Chop house had a large variety of fresh oysters and the standard accompaniments which were fresh and delicious.  Vikram offered a Lamb curry over rice as well as a Vegetarian curry which was a little on the salty side but delicious as usual. Robert Clark offered a Vegetrain Salad and Pork Rillette on crostini. The Rillette was a little on the dense side but the flavor was superb.  Joey's offered a piece of Albacore tuna on crostini that was ultra fresh with clean flavors, it was superb for a Hors D'oeurve.

Finally, Jay Leno was the entertainment for the evening and went on stage around 10 pm.  At this point, my wife and I had been there since approximately 7:30 pm (let me remind you that the event had an open bar) and we were both  a bit on the tipsy side by the time he hit the stage.  Once Jay Leno made his way to the stage, I was unusually surprised by how short he was.  Jay Leno has to be no more than 5"5 or 5"6. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera at home and I was only able to snap the photo of Jay with my Blackberry.

I must say the event as an absolute great experience for our first time.  The food and entertainment were spectacular and there was an open bar, what more do you need.  Great food, Great entertainment and Free Booze.


Anti Chef

A day in the Life In Van City

Welcome to my first Blog post. The intent of this Blog is to fulfill a need inside me that was lost when I stopped working in the Hospitality Industry (what i call retiring from being a Chef).

As a Chef on the Vancouver restaurant and Hotel scene for almost 15 years, I had finally reached a point in my life where I had lost the passion for the industry. Just to clarify, I had not, nor have I ever lost the passion for cooking. What I had lost was the taste for working 80-100 hours a week, never having weekends or holidays off and working for an ungrateful owner that paid you peanuts to keep his restaurant running like a well oiled machine.

It was about this time that my wife and I had gotten married and after working one of those particularly long days, I had an epiphany in which I realized that the actual life of a Chef was not as glamorous as the Food Network was portraying it and that I was starting to "HATE" what I did for a living.

I had to make a very tough decision, I had spent my entire adult (and adolescent) life in the hospitality industry. I had limited skills outside in the real world and now I was considering making a transition into a world I knew nothing about. I eventually made that transition, and found a Monday to Friday job in Sales in which surprisingly, I am very good at.

When I made the transition, I never realized the skills I learned as Chef actually made me a very well rounded individual with skills that were desirable in a world I was initially so frightened of.

I plan on showing you many different aspects of the Hospitality industry along with my own personal culinary adventures.

Some of the things you can expect are:

• In's and Out's of the Hospitality Industry
• Reviews of Restaurants, Hotels, Airlines and other modes of transportation
  
• Recipes and Recipes Reviews
• Product Reviews
• Interviews with Industry Insiders
• Previous and Current experiences with Culinary Underworld
  

And I cannot forget, my complete Guide to Social Misfitting.




Anti Chef