Some of the dishes have slipped a bit since the original Main location opened
Mia Stainsby
Sun
General manager Darrick Wan with dungeness crab cakes prepared in the kitchen at Crave Beachside in West Vancouver. Photograph by : Jenelle Schneider, Vancouver Sun
CRAVE BEACHSIDE
Overall: 3 1/2
Food: 3 1/2
Ambience: 3 1/2
Service: 3 1/2
Price: $$
1362 Marine Dr., West Vancouver. 604-926-3332. www.craveonmain.ca. Open for lunch and dinner daily. Weekend brunch starts in the next week or two.
Restaurant visits are conducted anonymously and interviews are done by phone. Restaurants are rated out of five stars. ([email protected])
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I’ve given a lot of ink to Wayne Martin lately. He’s the guy who dethroned himself as executive chef at the Four Seasons Vancouver a couple of years ago to open a down-to-earth bistro called Crave on Main Street.
He must have missed stress and anxiety because earlier this year he opened the high-end Fraiche and, shortly after that, Crave Beachside, both in West Vancouver. Fraiche turned out to be more than just a pretty view and the food is worth driving the long and winding road up the mountainside.
When the sun was still ablaze overhead, I had a couple of dinners at Crave Beachside (located where Beachside Restaurant operated for many years). On one of those evenings, we sat on the patio at a table next to actor Anne Heche and boyfriend James Tupper. I must say, before summer slipped away, that patio at sunset was a lovely place to be. And maybe it’ll be a winter patio, too, as there are heaters and plans to protect it from the cold and rain.
While Crave offers some great affordable food, I’ve noticed some dishes that have slipped since it first opened, at the Main Street location as well as this new one. The food isn’t as carefully tailored as it first was, but the kitchen still puts out simple, delicious dishes and prides itself on fresh, often organic, ingredients. Some of the produce has been coming from West Van’s Sunday Farmers’ Market, which operates in season in the public parking lot behind Crave.
One of the great dishes is the beef shortrib rigatoni with tomato ragout and pecorino cheese — just the right dish for cooling temperatures. The Dungeness crab cake is emphatically crabby inside with a crisp exterior; it comes with a perky apple and parmesan salad. Steak frites is the most expensive dish on the menu at $24 and features a 10-ounce New York cut; the truffle parmesan frites on the side created a war in my brain. Should I eat them all? Should I not? (I did.)
The buttermilk fried-chicken cobb salad, however, was heavy, although the tiny Anne Heche happily picked away at it. (At another table, a quartet of tiny-waisted women munched away on first courses, then moved on to ribs and burgers.)
Sundried tomato and basil meat loaf (organic meat) wasn’t as moist as I would have liked. A main dish of seared tuna niçoise salad was pristinely fresh, but I missed the chorus of a dressing.
Martin says the menu at the West Van location will deviate slightly from the one at Main Street. “I don’t want it to become a chain. The last thing I want is for them to be compared to Milestones or Earl’s,” he says.
In West Van, customers want light, healthy dishes, he says. (Although, as I said, the ribs and fried chicken were going down nicely.)
On the service end, there’s enough staff to keep things flowing smoothly and efficiently, but staff have to offer a little more of themselves and give more personality to the place. On the other hand, I wouldn’t be too happy if someone came between me and truffle parmesan frites.
© The Vancouver Sun 2008
