The Brasserie Bistro

1763 Comox – vancouver, BC. Located at the Coast hotel.

604 622 4462

website

I lost my mind when Dine Out Vancouver started this year and rushed into making all my important food related decisions. I totally mixed the Brasserie Bistro up with La Brasserie on Davie st when I was making my reservation – but that didn’t matter any, ’cause the stupid La Brasserie isn’t taking part in dine out this year anyway. Though I accidentally booked at a freaking hotel restaurant, my mouth still slobbered up a storm while looking at the dine out menu:

	Escargot Sautéed in garlic butter, sun dried tomatoes and artichokesin a lemon butter cream, served with frisee salad
Appetizer	OR
	Caesar Salad Served with crispy Pancetta, Focaccia wafer and shredded parmesan
	Lavender Grapefruit Crusted Wild Salmon over a Tuscany Tomato Sauce served with seasonal vegetables and basmati rice
Entree	OR
	Beef Tenderloin with grainy mustard jus served with seasonal vegetables and creamy whipped potato
	OR
	Wild Mushroom Ravioli sun dried tomato, asiago cheese and a lemon caper cream sauce
Dessert	Black Current Yogurt Mousse and Cointreau Chocolate Shooter

See what I mean?! It was looking goooo-oood!

The restaurant itself did not look quite so good. I had to stifle a laugh when we walked in. I couldn’t help but soak up the amazing first impression I got from the Brasserie Bistro. Let’s review the checklist:

Romantic rope lights? check!

Mismatched linens? check!

Sad, sad patrons? check!

Hideously patterned upholstery? check!

Windows with a sweet view of the inside of a mall? check!

A server who clearly doesn’t give a damn? check!

Yup – we’re certainly dining at a hotel tonight.

I tried hard to get over my gigglefest and get down to business. Though we went for the dineout menu – I quickly browsed the regular menu. It looked decent with a fair variety of dishes ranging from $15-30. Sticking to our original plan (as ridiculous as it may have been) we ordered off of the special dine out feature menu; we ordered the caesar salads, one mushroom ravioli, and one salmon. When the salads came I took one look and said “well, I’m gonna need this!” as I reached for the lemon.

The salad actually turned out to be fine. Not too saucy, not limp, it was totally average good. Well, except for the focaccia wafer – which was super suck-tacluar.

The mushroom ravioli’s sauce may have been a little heavy on the cream – but it was a tasty dish with the pasta cooked to perfection.

The salmon was also good – the grapefruit flavor was a nice compliment to the salmon. But some dumbo decided to sprinkle black olives all over the damn place. Who ever suggested that olives could get along without cheese, alcohol, and/or loads of oil?! Olives are gross-o with tomato and fish! Bad olives! Bad!

–Sorry, I don’t have a decent picture of the salmon or the offending olives.

The best part by far was the dessert. Mmmmmmm, cherries and black currant yogurt mousse with chocolate! Woot! I LOVE black currant – look how amazing the dessert looks – plus, it tastes even better than it looks!

Overall the Brasserie was good but not exactly worth the $28 (please note, my dining companion was hesitant to agree with this statement because in all fairness we did get a 3 course meal for $28). But still – if you ever find yourself eating at the Brasserie Bistro – get your dad to pay.

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Prefect pairing:

Julie & Julia

No, this is not a CD. I know that – but this cute little flick just might make you feel as though your loves of food, paris, and blogging is not a total waste of a life.