Yaletown L'Antipasto

The last dine out of 2014 and with a great crowd.

A few of us got off work early so we met up at the restaurant first. It was so hard to find, we all walked right past it. I had to look for the address to find it and my friends only found it when I waved at them.

Since we arrived an hour early, they decided to completely ignore us until 6:30pm - though, they did pour water for us and bring us the menu. They also brought the drink menu but didn't ask if we wanted to order drinks. I wanted to order a scotch to keep me warm while we waited for the rest of the party to show up.

Our fourth member showed up right on time and I was able to tell our server we can order while we wait for the last member. Our last member was running behind and by the time the beef tenderloin carpaccio showed up, she was still on her way. Our server was professional enough to realize the heat lamp will warm the carpaccio and offered to put her dish in the fridge while we wait.

The beef carpaccio was a little oily. Luckily we had bread that wasn't served when we were seated to absorb the oil. Maybe that was the purpose of the bread and that's why they didn't serve us bread when we sat down. We were served olives instead, which is a bold choice since not many people like olives.

As main course I ordered the pappardelle rosse. It was pretty tasty. The pasta was al dente and the ribs, chicken and sausage added really good and complex flavour to it. The only downside was that it too was very greasy / oily. Luckily, I eat from picking food off the top. I packed half of the pasta home and was able to avoid the oil collected on the bottom of the dish.

As dessert I ordered the vanilla panna cotta. Solid dessert. Not too sweet and very creamy. Maybe too creamy because the mouth feel was more like a creme brûlée than a gelatin. It should be in the middle.

Overall an alright experience. Plus side, we got tonnes of chocolate with our bill - which was thrown at us, but hey, the restaurant was crowded.

Horizons

We were invited to join my fifteen family members at Horizons for my little cousin's birthday. Normally, I would say that's a bad idea - for seventeen people to dine at a quiet romantic type restaurant, but I'm glad I was wrong.

For this dine out, I ordered from the dine out menu and my partner ordered from the normal menu. Our table shared two bottles of Lindeman's Bin 45 Cabernet Sauvignon. It went down so smooth my uncle said you can drink it straight from the bottle.

As appetizer, I ordered the crab cake. At first I thought it was too fishy, it didn't taste like fresh crab meat. Then I realized it was served with wasabi, and it was the "wow" factor in the dish.

As our entree, I ordered the pork tenderloin while my partner ordered the New York Steak, rare.

The pork was really tender, juicy, and flavourful. I was afraid we were going to be shortchange during dine out, but the dish was so big we had to pack half of it.

The steak was done just right. It was properly cooked - pink throughout and cool in the middle. It was juicy and tasty. It was really good steak. We also packed half.

For dessert, I ordered the raspberry green tea creme brûlée. My partner ordered the brownie. The green tea flavour from the creme brûlée caught me off guard. It was so strong, but so deliciously balanced by the tartness of the raspberry, which is ever so light. The brownie was the exact opposite - dense, and the texture created by the nuts mixed in was great.

The menu says they add 15% gratuity to parties of 8 or more, but not for us! That's such a brilliant thing to do when you give good service - because you can always get more than that if we have a good time!

Tivoli's

We arrived at Tivoli's Restaurant on a Friday night for dinner, it was really quiet. By the time we left there were just two other tables the whole night. I don't know how the servers stay so friendly and polite when there's no business.

The food started out pretty good. My partner had the chicken jeera hash cake and I had the coconut prawns. They were both flavorful, has great texture, and well presented.

As main course, we had the braised lamb shank and the roast pork porchetta. The lamb shank was really tender, but the taste wasn't the best. I thought it was too gamey, and my partner was just not impressed with the taste. The skin on the pork was so tough I couldn't cut through it with a steak knife. When my mother makes roast pork, the skin is crispy you can just bite through it. The taste was good though.

Dessert was a travesty. I think they order in. There's no way a decent chef can make something fresh taste that bad. Even with a "trio" of chocolate treats, none of them were decent.

It's really too bad as the setting and service were both great.