More casual atmosphere does not take away from the quality of the food
Mia Stainsby
Sun
Chef Rod Butters from Raudz Regional Table restaurant in kelowna. PHOTS FROM RAUDZ WEBSITE
Signature crab cake from Raudz Regional Table.
RAUDZ REGIONAL TABLE
Overall: ****1/2
Food: ****1/2
Ambience: ****1/2
Service: ***1/2
Price: $$
1560 Water St., Kelowna
250-868-8805
www.raudz.com.
Open daily for dinner.
Restaurant visits are conducted anonymously and interviews are done by phone.
– – –
I make at least a trip a year to the Okanagan to keep pace with what’s going on. Wineries boogie along, with new ones opening all the time, and it’s great to visit the little ones, afire with passion, like Rollingdale and Pentage.
The food side hasn’t had quite the strong, fast legs of the wine business, but there’s always something new going on.
The highlight on this trip was Raudz Regional Table in Kelowna. It’s kind of a born-again restaurant. Even before the financial meltdown, Rod Butters and wife Audrey Surrao decided to redo their very successful Fresco restaurant. They’d always wanted to open a second, more casual place but decided, why not redo Fresco?
Raudz Regional Table was the result. (The name is an odd play on their first names.) Prices are lower and gone are the crisp linen, fresh flowers, amuse bouche and fine dining details (like reservations) — which, face it, you paid for. I liked it so much I wished I could stay longer for a second visit to try more dishes.
Mains can go as low as $12 for a souped-up hot dog (a riff on the couple’s experience of a Strasbourg hot dog with pommes frites piled atop the hot dog of two merguez sausages) or $14 for a locovore burger with beef from Enderby, cheese from Kelowna, and buns made with locally milled flour. The top end includes lamb tenderloin with lavender marinade, whipped potatoes, and minted vegetable salad and tenderloin/shortrib dish with horseradish mayo and fries for $25 and $29.
We tried a couple of appetizer specials — light, creamy asparagus soup with morels (a little skimpy on the morels), a bull’s eye hit on fresh asparagus flavour. Calamari with sun-dried olive stuffing and roasted cauliflower salad was delicious. For mains, we had pan-fried salmon with prawn and shrimp ravioli in a tomato broth and a tuna casserole. The latter was no canned tuna mum’s casserole — fresh tuna belly is smoked in applewood and the rotini-shaped pasta is smothered in a celeriac cream sauce. Neither were fussed-over but were cooked with expertise.
The signature dessert — a double chocolate mashed potato brioche with raspberry sorbet and warm chocolate sauce — was not especially impressive. Why add weight and density and moisture to ruin the glory that is brioche? That said, I wasn’t able to sample others which included a cherry chocolate truffle tart and pink rhubarb cheesecake with strawberry compote.
Butters, who’s been around the block, as chef at the Wickaninnish Inn and sous chef at Chateau Whistler and Four Seasons Hotel, says the menu is 80 to 85 per cent regional. The food, he says, is the kind of food we all like to eat often.
Sidelines: On our trip, we stayed at the 115-acre, eclectic God’s Mountain B & B in Penticton, run by Sarah Allen, former owner of Tuscany Pizza on Bowen Island. Joy Road Catering, run by a couple with with lots of kitchen cred from Toronto, runs dinner programs there on Wednesdays and Sundays from June to the end of October and the word is, they’re fab. If you don’t see them there, they sell artisanal baking at the Saturday morning Penticton Farmers’ Market.
I also tried Amanti Bistro (483 Main St.), a newish restaurant in Penticton. It’s well-priced and tries hard but Raudz left them in the dust. The Bench Artisan Food Market (368 Vancouver Avenue), however, is well worth stopping by for a lunch or gelato.
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
