Brick-walled eatery is barbellshaped. If I were a server, I’d wear rollerblades
Mia Stainsby
Sun
Beef striploin with goat cheese green bean potato tlan is a featured dish at Plan B. The restaurant has sharing dishes. They cost $9 to $19 and can be seductive.
The name of this place, Plan B, immediately makes you wonder — so what happened to Plan A?
Owner Glenn Cormier doesn’t see Plan B as second rate at all, at all, at all. He went with the name when he didn’t score the first venue he’d wanted. When the Homer Street building came up — aha! Plan B.
“To me, Plan B often turns out to be the better way to go, in hindsight,” Cormier says. “It’s often the best choice. I’ve always seen it as positive. But I’m told Plan B is also the name of a morning after pill.”
I’m reminded of an interesting item on the Plan B menu, which gives a sense of chef Ryan Zuvich’s imaginative cooking. It’s a tempura egg yolk, an accompaniment to duck confit and beluga lentil. He takes an egg yolk, freezes it, then dips it in tempura batter and deepfries it to the point where the yolk is still runny. He perches it atop the duck and when you cut into the egg, it oozes over the duck, like a sauce.
Or, so it was supposed to but my egg was over-cooked and thus, did not ooze. But being an egg person, I like the egg yolk sauce idea a lot.
Zuvich was previously chef de cuisine at Bin 942, which Cormier says is “a bit of a thorn in his side” as everyone expects Bin food. “Ryan really wants to step out from the shadow of Gord Martin.”
Well, I don’t know. What’s wrong with being compared to Gord Martin?
Plan B’s menu features sharing dishes, the way of Yaletown social bees. They cost $9 to $19 and like Bin food, it can be seductive; it’s certainly not shy and often comes with added value.
Smoked ham hock and green pea soup, for example, comes with a small croque monsieur. A dramatically presented Alaskan black cod is paired with maple butternut squash ravioli, black trumpet mushroom salad, and beurre blanc.
A tower of beef striploin tournedos, green bean potato tian, beef and buttermilk onion rings and Madeira glaze worked, even though I find skyscraper food annoying as it must come tumbling down.
A lamb rack with celeriac purée, roast sweet potato and eggplant featured juicy lamb; a decorative cumin sugar globe seemed like an unnecessary intrusion on the plate. Pan-fried oysters are teamed with butter-poached lobster (lots of lobster, albeit slightly rubbery).
I tried a couple of desserts — grapefruit terrine set with champagne and coriander (tiny cubes of it), served with honey goat cheese gelato (tasty); the lemon tart was a nice balance of creamy and tart.
The tapas dishes add up to more than a few bites. Our server suggested a couple of dishes each and we felt she was under-selling but for moderate appetites, it would have been just fine.
The brick-walled room is barbell- shaped, starting with a small collection of tables, then cinches into a pencil-thin runway bar and opens up to another dining area at the back. In effect, it runs from Homer to Hamilton Streets like a train and it’s hard to work up a cohesive vibe as the sections are isolated. And if I were a server, I’d wear rollerblades.
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PLAN B LOUNGE AND EATERY
Overall: 3 1/2
Food: 3 1/2
Ambience: 3 1/2
Service: 3 1/2
Price: $$
1144 Homer St., 604-609-7001, www.planblounge.com
Open Monday to Saturday, from 5 p.m.
Restaurant visits are conducted anonymously and interviews are done by phone. Restaurants are rated out of five stars.
