The next chapter in the business plan is to open multiple locations and then open grocery sections to sell their sauces

Mia Stainsby
Sun

When Paul Thind talks business plans, he goes at a gallop. But the question is, can a couple of guys with business savvy, a passion for food and no restaurant experience make a go of running a modern Indian restaurant?

Thind, managing partner of Mysala Indian Bistro, commerce graduate, former commercial printing operator, said his mom didn’t think so. “When I told her we going to open an Indian restaurant, she asked us how much we’d been drinking. She thought we’d lose interest the moment we had to make a cup of chai.”

Well, Mysala opened last month on nightclub row on Granville, and Thind and partner Davy Sangara (who is also involved in his family’s substantial businesses) have certainly done their homework.

Mysala began life as a businessman selling sauces, chutneys and seasonings to Whole Foods and Capers from a factory kitchen in Burnaby. They grew that business until the time was right for their restaurant, after looking a year and a half for the right location.

Mysala’s long, narrow room has a towering ceiling, comfortable leather banquette seating and Indian fusian music. The name looks like masala with a typo, but it isn’t. It’s a mash-up of masala and mystery.

“The mystery is, we go and enjoy good Chinese, Japanese and Western fare in Vancouver. We always wondered why Indian hadn’t reached that level,” says Thind, acknowledging that Vij’s is no slouch in that respect. “The idea was to bring Western hospitality and plating but to keep with tradition. India is moving in that direction as well.”

They want to be like an Indian version of Earl’s or The Keg. The next chapter in their business plan is to open multiple locations and then open grocery sections to sell their sauces, meals, desserts, and condiments, sort of like Hon’s, Rangoli and Thai House.

“If the product is just on a grocery shelf and no one’s tasted it, you need to have demos. There’s a knowledge gap,” says Thind. “The business plan is, people will experience the food at the restaurant and they’ll want to experience the food at home later.”

Prices for appetizers are $6 to $11 and $15 to $28 for mains. Based on what I’ve tried at the restaurant, the power points are the melodious sauces and the varied chutneys like roasted tomato; tamarind and mango; tamarind and mint; and pineapple. At the restaurant at any rate, they’re fresh and lively. Curry sauces are light and easy on the stomach partly because the kitchen uses extra virgin olive oil instead of the traditional clarified butter.

I also liked the chicken pakora appetizer — a large serving of light, juicy chicken. The menu pairs it with pineapple chutney and cucumber raita but ours came with butter chicken sauce and raita. I cannot complain about the Goa crabcakes with tamarind, mint and yogurt sauce — they were fine but not outstanding. Lamb kebabs with almond and mango chutney, another appy, was a generous dish with four tasty minced lamb kebabs, a salad, naan and rice.

Moving into the main courses, beef vindaloo was bathed in a delicious chocolate-hued sauce; tandoori chicken was too dry and since it wasn’t cooked in a tandoor, should go by another name. Saffron lamb chops were nice and tender and served on a cast iron pan with saffron coconut cream sauce. Ajwain wild salmon was left largely uneaten as it didn’t taste fresh and the dish, served with a cilantro mint sauce, rice, mixed veg and naan wasn’t visually appealing.

The rice, by the way, is very good with hints of cinnamon and cardamom. Thind says it’s Kashmiri rice, aged two years.

We enjoyed a chai creme “Bombay” with blueberry and ginger compote for dessert; coconut cardamom brownie tasted of cardamom but not of chocolate.

There’s a modest list of wines, a decent beer list and a dozen cocktails. All in all, a good value restaurant, an Indian Earl’s.

– – –

MYSALA INDIAN BISTRO

Overall: 3 1/2

Food: 3 1/2

Ambience: 3 1/2

Service: 3 1/2

Price: $$

980 Granville St., 604-688-2969, www.mysalarestaurant.com. Open 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m daily

Restaurant visits are conducted anonymously and interviews are done by phone. Restaurants are rated out of five stars.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

Italian Kitchen To Go is hard to spot but after the Kobe meatballs, you’ll find your way back

Mia Stainsby
Sun

I couldn’t figure out why Italian Kitchen To Go was so exasperatingly hidden. It turns out they actually don’t want to be easily found.

Italian Kitchen To Go is the babykins addition to the much more substantial Italian Kitchen next door. The “to go” counter came about in a deal with the landlord — the parent restaurant was able to get additional space for the kitchen if they provided a take-away counter for the tenants in the building.

No one’s going to wrestle us to the ground and throw us out should we go in to get some breakfast or lunch at Italian Kitchen To Go, but you’ll understand the reason for the poor signage. When I contacted owner Emad Yacoub on the phone, I put in a request for an Italian Kitchen To Go for my office building, too. It’s svelte and the food is good!

The small counter sells pizzas cut into bands, panini, wraps, salads, soups, baking but, alas, no pasta.

The clincher is the Kobe meatballs. The kitchen is making a thousand meatballs a day for both facilities. At the take-out you can get them as meatballs, period, or in a baked focaccia sandwich, which was delicious.

The pizzas aren’t the blanket-of-cheese type. They’re thin crust and nicely, lightly seasoned. The mascarpone cheese, sage, baby potato and roasted garlic pizza was delicious. The staff are still green — I pointed to the aforementioned pizza and asked if it was pear and blue cheese and the reply was yes. Imagine my surprise when I bit into the potato. Another dish I tried, the spinach salad was floatingly light, crisp and lightly dressed.

Yacoub has just signed with another space on Alberni Street which he says will become a seafood restaurant. When they have that larger kitchen up and running, Italian Kitchen To Go will go bigger and be open longer, he says. This is one of many ventures of his Glowbal Restaurant Group — they include Glowbal Grill and Satay, Coast, Sanafir and Afterglow Bar.

Another Italian Kitchen is in the works on Fourth Avenue. “My managers keep pushing me,” he says. “They want to invest.”

– – –

ITALIAN KITCHEN TO GO

1037 Alberni St., 604-687-2890

Open 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays, closed weekends.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

 

With dishes and spices like these, it would be easy

Mark Laba
Province

Saravanaa Bhavan

Where: 955 W. Broadway

Payment/reservations: Major credit cards, 604-732-7700

Drinks: Wine, beer and soft drinks

Hours: Open everyday, lunch 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.; dinner, 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.

For many years, the only reason I thought vegetables existed were to plump up animals to get them ready for eating. Potatoes didn’t count since they came from the Mr. Potato Head species, which, as we know, are a few notches up in the human-evolution chain.

Then I saw Vincent Price in The Abominable Dr. Phibes and in one scene he drips Brussels-sprout juice all over the face of a sleeping victim and then lets a swarm of locusts loose in the room.

The results, for a 10-year-old, were inspiring and from then on I thought, boy, vegetables are cool.

Still, it’s not often that I go out of my way to engage in a full-on veggie gorge-fest but if any place was to tempt me, it was this new enterprise. Well, new to Vancouver but really this chain of restaurants that began in Chennai and specializes in Southern Indian cooking has blossomed into 48 locations around the globe.

Called up my old pal Boris “Cast Iron Stomach” Keplinksy and ducked into the svelte new digs. A big space in almost all-beige hues with booth seats at the back, a buffet table running down the centre of the room and an image of Ganesha, the elephant-headed god, to greet you at the door.

“It’s nice you invite me to this place,” Boris said. “I need to balance my digestive tract. If I eat another fatted calf, I think I’ll burst.”

“Boris, this joint should lube your chakras perfectly and get you rolling on the spiritual autobahn of your being in no time.”

“Use language like that around me again and I hit you, OK?”

The afternoon buffet is a great way to sample the intrigues and intricacies of South Indian spicing. And at $8.99 for a selection of more than 20 items, it’s a long and winding road through an edible landscape not common on these shores. Idli (cakes of black lentil and rice), doughnut-shaped vada, vatral kozhambu (a Tamil soupy curry), rava kichadi (roasted sooji or semolina cooked with onion, tomato, green chilies, carrots and green peas) or pachadi (chopped veggies cooked up with coconut, chilies, mustard seed and ginger and is a tasty side dish for savoury lentil curry).

I also sampled the Saravanaa Special Meal ($8.95) that came with channa masala, sambar, kulambu (a spicy eggplant curry), puffy poori bread, and more veggie curries that kept me guessing as to their contents. From pungent to sweet, sour to spicy, this place packs it all in with a kaleidoscope of flavours. And the spicing was enough to give old “Cast Iron” a run for the money.

Also check out the dosa (rice crêpes with a perfect texture) listings. I tried the kara dosa with onion and potato, served up with coconut, mint and tomato chutney and sambar. Truly inspiring, as are most of the dishes prepared here, with ingredients and spicing as ethereal and esoteric as a list of Hindu deities. Some of the breads could be served warmer, though.

“Mmm. It’s like my tastebuds have just read the Upanishads,” Boris commented.

THE BOTTOM LINE:

Meditations on a veggie way of living

RATINGS: Food: B+ Service: B+ Atmosphere: B

© The Vancouver Province 2008

 

The eatery has softened its acoustics and introduced a three-course menu for $35 that’s excellent value

Mia Stainsby
Sun

In May when I first reviewed Chow, the gist of it was that ya, ya, the food was lovely but the noise drove me crazy. It was worse than a Canucks home game during playoffs.

Fast-forward eight months. Different story. Now I find a pleasant buzz of conversation, thanks to an easy fix with sound-absorbing materials on the walls, and I can experience the place unplugged.

Dine Out Vancouver is in full tilt and although Chow isn’t a participant, it was packed by a loyal, local base of fans. (According to the grapevine, there are those who shun favourite restaurants to avoid Dine Out invaders.)

Since I last visited, Chow has introduced a three-course early-bird menu for $35, which runs from 5 to 6 p.m. (to 6:30 during Dine Out). I would suggest, if you like a good deal, this is worth checking out. I did.

For $35, I had a beet salad showcasing the hidden charms of the lowbrow root (baby beets, full of tender flavour with candied walnuts, Okanagan goat cheese, bitter orange purée and vin cotto vinegar). Second course: a lovely, roasted ling cod with sauce grenobloise atop bulgur salad and a side of silky cauliflower purée. Third course: frozen nougat, sprinkled with pistachios with vanilla-poached pear and a pear purée, which reminded me of a pear sorbet I had 20 years ago in France that still tantalizes me.

My partner’s $35 meal consisted of a creamy mussel soup with grilled bread and saffron froth; ultra-tender organic pork, sunchoke purée, pillowy gnocchi, chestnut jus. For dessert, he had chocolate mille-feuille with house-made puff pastry, coffee cream, Bailey’s ice cream and creme anglais.

Beside us, a table of two women looked astonished as they viewed the prix fixé menu. “This fixed menu looks great!” one of them said, as if expecting humble pie for earlybird cheapskates.

On another visit we ordered from the regular menu. We loved the roasted portobello tart; the flat iron beef with potato fondant, grilled king oyster mushroom, spinach purée and red wine braised shallots and the pan-seared Vancouver Island scallops with house-made garganelli pasta, oyster mushrooms, wild arugula and cauliflower purée.

On that visit, the dessert of pistachio and almond baklava with poached pears ad honey ice cream wasn’t as compelling as our prix fixé desserts, or as transcendent as a creamy lemon tart I’d had when I visited last May. Some of the main dishes, by the way, come in two sizes and prices.

Chef and co-owner Jean-Christophe (J.C. to anyone who knows him) has previously worked at Lumière and C restaurants, as well as at Montreal‘s pride, Toqué. He’s one of the new breed of chefs who butchers his own meat. He uses the pig snout to tail, so somewhere on the menu you’ll find sausage in some form (convenient package for some of the less-desirable bits), and now he brings in whole lamb to do the same. Dishes are $10 to $39.

Co-owner Mike Thomson plays the genial host and it’s a welcoming place; the bartender calls out a salutation as I peer into the bar area. Bar manager Christopher Flett takes his drinks very seriously with a delicious list of cocktails, a whisky and bourbon list. Wines are mostly New World with a growing selection of Old World.

– – –

CHOW

3121 Granville St., 604-608-2469

Open for dinner only, www.chow-restaurant.com

Overall: 4 1/2

Food: 4 1/2

Ambience: 4

Service: 4

Restaurant visits are conducted anonymously and interviews are done by phone. Restaurants are rated out of five stars.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

 

When you spot the deep yellow sign, pull over and go inside. You won’t be disappointed

Russell Wodell
Sun

Previously we had registered this restaurant only as a cheering splash of bright Indian colour — saffron, of course — in an otherwise drab Kingsway mini-mall, while approaching the indispensable intellectual resource of the Metrotown branch of the Burnaby Public Library.

Big mistake!

When you spot the deep yellow Saffron Indian Cuisine sign, we strongly advise you to pull over and go inside. (It’s only a few blocks from the Metrotown SkyTrain stop.) You can pretty much follow your nose, as a deep and delicious melange of spices makes itself known even before the door is opened.

The small, oddly angular space (presumably because a triangular pizza parlour has been sliced off one end) is decidedly contemporary, and Saffron offers a nicely modern take on the decor evoked by a few decorative panels of traditional Indian textiles.

It also has a slightly surreal-looking bar, lit from below in bright blue. On a cold, dark January evening, we were surprised to find almost every table occupied, and only slightly dismayed to register that two of our trio were by far the oldest people present (staff included).

Chef Kuldeep Bains, who trained in a variety of international cuisines at the Ritz Hotel in London, says the clientele changes depending on the time of day: a lunchtime crowd descends from the surrounding offices, and the weekend crowd tends to be larger family groups “who seem to come for the butter chicken.”

Just as the room avoids the excessive decor of some ethnic-focused restaurants, the menu has been kept to a workable number of options. We chose to sample some of the less familiar regional dishes from the Punjab-oriented selection: Chicken Hederabadi ($12.95), Goa curried prawns ($14.95), Kashmiri pulao rice laced with raisins and slivers of nuts ($3.50), a mixed vegetable korma ($10.95), and a lamb chili ($13.95).

Our waitress kindly warned us that one dish per person plus rice and bread was going to be more than plenty. In the interests of good reviewing, we ordered far too much (that’s as good an excuse for gluttony as we can come up with) and happily took the residue home.

It proved a fine sampling choice. The chicken was lusciously subtle; the veggies heartening and comforting; the lamb sharply assertive and sinus-cleansing. Our one small disappointment was the prawns — the seafood was previously frozen and slightly rubbery. But the coconut milk-based sauce that accompanied it was sensational, and every drop got scooped up with the accompanying breads: plain naan ($1.50) and a special Saffron stuffed naan ($3.50) — the latter highly recommended.

We returned the following Saturday to sample the mid-day buffet ($10.50 per person). A discreet, possibly jocular sign invites you to help yourself to as much as you wish, but warns of a retributory surcharge of $2.50 in the event of excessive waste. Fat chance!

All present cleaned their plates, returned for dessert, then relaxed totally replete and ready for a nap. A lavish choice of entrees favoured chicken dishes, but there was a good selection of pakoras and other vegetarian entrees.

The standout vegetarian dish was the mushroom mutter, a fabulous combination of peas and mushrooms in onion sauce that one could happily eat daily. No doubt some local customers do. Lucky them.

– – –

SAFFRON INDIAN CUISINE

5 – 4300 Kingsway, Burnaby

604-436-5000

Open 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday to Thursday; 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday

Reservations recommended

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

 

Medina opened up recently and it’s right next door to and run by the same owners at Chambar

Mia Stainsby
Sun

One morning recently, I went to Medina to give it the once-over and try the coffee and the Liége waffle borrowed from the streets of Belgium.

Well, the coffee was brilliant with a thick crema that refused to die. I chose a fig/marmalade compote (from eight choices) to go with the waffle. I could have grooved to the music, reading, and spinning out a whole afternoon.

In the bathroom, I had a lump-in-my-throat moment reading a verse by reggae artist Tanya Stephenson limned on the wall: “What a day when war becomes a thing of the past and peace, we will have at last and life is finally worth its cost/And oh what a day when men finally live what they teach and love ain’t just a concept we preach and blood no longer runs in the street/Oh what a day.”

Medina (means “vibrant city” in Arabic) opened recently after the city strike brought the project to a grinding halt last summer. It’s right next door to and run by the same owners as Chambar, a restaurant that hits all the right notes.

Owners Nico and Karri Shuermans are joined in this venture by managing partner Robbie Kane who was previously a waiter at Chambar.

By early spring, the trio will be able to take over the back area, now an office, and get it on with an ample breakfast and lunch menu. Right now, there’s that great coffee (49th Parallel, the organic Epic blend), waffles, fruit with yogurt and baklava. Liége waffles, incidentally, are leavened with yeast and large crystal sugar in the dough caramelizes in the waffle iron.

– – –

MEDINA

556 Beatty St., 604-879-3114,

www.medinacafe.com

Open 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

Successful group’s president aims to increase revenue to $30 million by 2010

Michael Kane
Sun

Glowbal Restaurant Group has earned countless laurels since its inception in Vancouver in 2002, but president Emad Yacoub has no plans to rest on them.

After opening five successful businesses in five years, he’s predicting the group will increase its annual revenues from $23 million to $30 million by the time Vancouver welcomes the Olympics.

With 320 staff and 11 partners, it’s hard to imagine anything stopping this innovative company with its signature mixture of fascinating food and high-energy atmosphere.

Glowbal is being courted for its culinary expertise by hotel developers in Calgary and there are rumours it will be in on the ground floor when Vancouver‘s expanded convention centre opens next year.

Meanwhile the company is preparing to launch its sixth venture — a trattoria promising casual dining without the fried stuff — at the former Chianti’s on the corner of West 4th and Burrard in Kitsilano.

The trattoria will join a stable that includes Yaletown’s Glowbal Grill & Satay Bar and Afterglow, its celebrity hotspot lounge; the award-winning Coast Restaurant; Granville’s Street’s exotic Sanafir Restaurant and Lounge; and Italian Kitchen, last year’s celebrated addition to the downtown dining scene.

Not bad for three successful restaurateurs from Toronto who were lured to the West Coast after Yacoub married Vancouver‘s Shannon Bosa of the Bosa construction family. She was managing Joe Fortes Seafood and Chop House when Yacoub was brought in as executive chef in the late ’90s.

At first the couple set their sights on Hogtown and opened a couple of restaurants in partnership with Yacoub’s older brother, but Yacoub says his desire “to change the world” clashed with his sibling’s conservative approach to business.

They returned to Vancouver and teamed up with long-time friends and executive chefs Sean Riley and Jack Lamont to launch the Glowbal Grill in 2002, one of the first Yaletown restaurants to ditch the ubiquitous warehouse brick-look in favour of recreating a loud and hip New-York style bar.

“That was the beginning of our company because we established ourselves as completely different from everybody else,” said 43-year-old Yacoub, who immigrated from Turkey in 1984.

“Our clientele were successful executives, all of them making very high disposable incomes, and they don’t like to go to nightclubs and they don’t like to go to a quiet restaurant. They want to feel energy, so this is what we created for them.”

Next came Afterglow, ranked in magazine polls as one of the city’s best bars, and famed as a Hollywood North hangout for the likes of Pamela Anderson, Michael Buble and Robin Williams.

Then, to demonstrate some substance behind their hip image, Yacoub and his partners opened Yaletown’s Coast seafood restaurant which has been put in the same company as the exceptional Bluewater Cafe and C.

Sanafir soon followed, a tapas restaurant with a “Silk Road” menu offering West Coast ingredients with the flavours of North Africa, Asia and the Middle East in an Ali Baba-style setting that speaks to Yacoub’s Egyptian heritage. It features Moroccan-style beds on the second floor where customers can sit and enjoy champagne and finger food.

And then came Italian Kitchen at Alberni and Burrard, described by Yacoub as “an $8 million-plus store on track to become the busiest restaurant in Vancouver after Joe Fortes.”

Along the way they also built on their backgrounds in big hotels and banqueting to open a catering division.

Yacoub credits the solid credentials of each partner for Glowbal’s continuing success, along with a strategy that allows every manager to invest in every new restaurant after working with the company for one year.

“We’re actually making the company grow from within because it creates humongous cash flow,” he said. “Everybody wants to save their money and put it into the business, and every manager is making money for other managers.

“My whole goal is to keep opening restaurants and having my managers own them,” he said.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

 

Beautifully seasoned creation with myriad fixings

Mark Laba
Province

In the 14 years I’ve lived in B.C., I’ve only been skiing twice. I enjoy it immensely, although my brother-in-law refers to me as “a yard sale” when we hit the slopes. I wasn’t familiar with this term but soon learned its meaning as I picked up strewn rental equipment from my magnificent wipe-outs. There has been a few times also where I have crawled down a run on my hands and knees whimpering while snowboarders jump over me. It’s not a pretty sight. So I may not be good at skiing but when I’m up Whistler way and I finally finish the day without breaking a limb, tearing cartilage or impaling myself on a ski pole, I retire to the one thing I am good at. Eating. And by eating I mean hamburgers, my second-favourite food next to ketchup. And when you’re talking hamburgers, there’s only one place to go in the suck-up-your-credit-limit Village and that’s Splitz Grill. I may be a yard sale on the slope, but at this place I’m the Steve Podborksi of meat patties gracefully taking each turn in the downhill of my digestive tract.

A veritable institution up at Whistler, a place I only get to once every five years because just breathing the rarified air up there costs money, I was elated when I heard there is now a Vancouver location. In fact, owners and burger masters Trevor and Miriam Jackson have sold their Whistler shop to friends, packed up their spatulas and moved to the big city.

Peaches and I stepped into the brand-spanking-new venue with its oversized wooden booths, overhead dressed-up industrial piping and semi-stylish utilitarian contouring and Peaches was instantly buoyed up by the Rob Feenie look-a-like manning the grill.

“Maybe that is Feenie and he’s working here after being pushed out of his own restaurant.”

“Can’t be. There’s no goose-liver burger topping.”

That’s about the only topping missing from this eclectic mix of 20-something toppings and sauces. Order at the counter, take a tray and make your way down to the grilling and assemblage area where you can pimp your patty any way you like it. Toppings include babaganoush, hummus, salsa, tzatziki, the famous Splitz sauce and then you can further attire your burger with sauerkraut, alfalfa sprouts, kosher dills, banana peppers and even cucumber. Just a sampling from the dizzy array of stuff.

As for the burger itself, it’s a beautifully seasoned creation on a crispy bun lightly kissed with grill-marks. Meat meets its maker and I can only believe this cow died happy knowing how tenderly it would be formed into a sartorial patty of edible pleasure. It’s a messy affair, as was Peaches’ chicken burger and her only complaint that, among all the toppings, there was no guacamole. Burgers run from $5.70-$7.50, or combo meals that include excellent hand-cut fries and a drink are priced from $7.50-$11.95 if you opt out for the teriyaki salmon filet.

So definitely check out the other beasts of burger burden including an Italian sausage construction and a great grilled lamb composition or, if animal flesh isn’t your thing, some folks swear by the spicy lentil burger. Throw in an ice-cream float or milkshake and the slopes are yours to conquer, even it is just the slope of your stomach while you’re lying on the sofa digesting.

THE BOTTOM LINE: The marriage of meat and Main Street.

RATINGS: Food: A-; Service: B+; Atmosphere: B

© The Vancouver Province 2008

 

One dish jumps out at Yaletown’s new tapas-style restaurant — rigatoni with slow-braised short rib Bolognese

Mia Stainsby
Sun

I’m feeling like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. Wasn’t I here before? Didn’t I eat this before?

Rooms and menus are starting to blur like the dividing line between appies and entrees. That’s what I’m feeling when I sit down to another small plates menu at Flite, a new tapas-style spot in Yaletown.

But one dish leapt out at Flite. The rigatoni with slow-braised short rib Bolognese was a carnal experience. Not perfect, mind you, as the noodles weren’t seasoned properly. But the meat sauce was a perfect 10. And it was a decent-sized dish.

Pastas, it seems, are the strong point at Flite (there are three). Other dishes I tried did not shout victory.

But I’m jumping ahead.

Flite is so named because it offers flights of wine, which come in groupings of three small pours or reds or whites (on a terribly flimsy rack). The wine list, though, is typical of many mid-range restaurants — you’d think there would be a multitude of offerings by the glass since they seem to be emphasizing wines.

Flite takes over from Lucky Diner, which Sean Heather of Irish Heather and Salt ran before heading back to his Gastown businesses. Owner/chef Rick Momsen added dramatic elements to the former stripped-down space, bringing in curvy booths, glittering glass and chandeliers. There are front-row seats to the kitchen, which the server referred to as the ‘chef’s table’.

Momsen has worked at Bin 941, as well as La Terrazza, and he had a brief stint at CinCin. The Italian influence served him best — of the eight savoury dishes tried over two visits, two pasta dishes were the only ones that made me pat my tummy and smack my lips.

For the rigatoni with braised short rib Bolognese, Momsen braised the meat in a red wine sauce over two days until the meat is completely broken down. I thought I tasted hints of chocolate. Prawns and asparagus linguini with oven-dried tomatoes was a simple but nicely seasoned and focused dish.

Actually, there was another winner: The Saltspring Island lamb medallions with caramelized fig and port wine jus was perfectly cooked.

There were problems with other dishes — a prawns and 40-day aged beef dish featured nice prawns but the beef was leathery. The prawns were “ocean-wise” but were transported from Mexico; and the beef might have been aged, but it was ruined in the cooking. Organic tofu did not pair well with stilton cheese polenta, smoked potato and black olive tapenade. Pan-seared crusted oysters were very tasty but overwhelmed with too much going on — baby spinach, sweet potato chive cake and hard bits of pancetta.

A pear tart, baked a la minute, started out well, except it was topped with a firm quenelle of creme fraiche, which I thought was vanilla ice cream to sweeten the fairly bland pears, but the creme fraiche tasted like butter. I did like a chocolate trio dessert, a plate with mousse, handmade chocolates and ice cream. Dishes cost $8 to about $18.

The servers compensated for the lacklustre parts of our meals. “Jason,” our server on both occasions, was positive, chatty and welcoming. One night, the hostess levitated about the room in a red dress and patent red stiletto heels and was able to be friendly and helpful at the same time. I’d say that’s quite a feat. Or should that be feet?

FLITE

Overall: 3

Food: 3

Ambience: 3

Service: 3 1/2

Price: $$

1269 Hamilton St., 604-687-1269

www.fliterestaurant.com

Open for dinner Monday to Saturday. To open for lunch and week-end brunch starting Feb. 1.

Restaurant visits are conducted anonymously and interviews are done by phone. Restaurants are rated out of five stars.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

 

Masa’s a la Carte’s a neighbourhood favourite for an inexpensive meal — Japanese, or not

Mia Stainsby
Sun

A mish-mash menu is usually not a good sign. But at Masa’s a la Carte, if you pilot your way through the menu, you can have a nice, homey breakfast or an inexpensive Japanese lunch or dinner.

Owner Masa Wake has been running this little neighbourhood spot for more than seven years, best known for breakfast and lunch. He’s thrilled, but can’t believe the number of locals who come in for takeout breakfasts of scrambled eggs or one of the 10 omelettes he has on the brekkie menu.

The Japanese side of lunch includes sushi rolls, meat or fish and vegetable stirfries with a choices of ginger garlic, teriyaki or miso gravy sauces. There are a couple of rice bowls (oyakodon, teriyaki chicken) as well as burgers with a Japanese tweak — katsu burger (with deep-fried breaded chicken) and a regular burger comes with “Japanese style healthy sauce.”

Some of the sushi have odd Japan-glish names, like Hot & Night and W Prawn (described as “prawn, prawn [sic], crab meat & masago with sweet sauce”).

If a lunch partner isn’t in a Japanese food mood, there are sandwiches, quesadillas, pizza or spaghetti. I only tried sushi and a rice bowl (oyakodon) so I cannot vouch for the rest but it’s a nice spot to stop for a casual meal. Nothing outstanding, but it’s small and cheerful with Wake in the kitchen and a single server out front who handles a lunch-time crowd with aplomb.

Wake is originally from Osaka, a food-loving city. It’s known for okonomoyaki, which Westerners like to refer to as “Japanese pancake” of veggies and a light dough, which when done well, is a great, hearty dish. Wake says he can’t offer it because it takes too long to make. It really does require standing over and forming and patting and flipping.

Meanwhile, there are lots of home-style dishes to fuel you for the day.

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MASA’S A LA CARTE

3689 West Fourth Ave., 604-732-3689

Open 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesday to Thursday; 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday to Sunday. Closed Monday.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008