Les Faux Bourgeois Bistro

Wait. This restaurant was voted the #1 fine dining restaurant in Vancouver? Step. I may not be qualified to judge which one should get the top spot, but I'm pretty sure it shouldn't be this one.

This is a decent restaurant, but I think it's overrated. It's clearly been the victim of too much hype. It only does it disservice to portray it falsely, because it sets you up for disappointment. That's what I find happened to me when I visited it for the first time recently, carrying on my shoulders a world of expectations that promptly and unceremoniously bit the dust upon arrival.

Fraiche, one of the best restaurants I've ever been to and certainly the best fine dining restaurant I've been to in Vancouver, isn't even on the list! Haphazard ratings like this are what make me dislike the ratings at Urbanspoon.

(And it's not just about one restaurant on a big list. What about the other restaurants on the list? A hot dog stand is the best restaurant in Vancouver? And a cheap Greek eatery is the second best? Followed by Les Faux Bourgeois? Yeah, makes perfect sense.)

Anyway...

My recent experience dining at Les Faux Bourgeois was by no means an unmitigated disaster or anything. I can recommend this restaurant if you are looking for a decent traditional French cooking. The prices are not the absurd prices of some places like Cru, and the food was mostly quite good, which I can't say for many French restaurants in these parts.

Just don't expect to waltz over there one night and find a seat. You have to reserve to eat at this place at least one month in advance. For Fraiche I would gladly jump through hoops, but it is laughable for these guys (and the rest of Vancouver) to think so highly of themselves.

Aside from this, the main problem with this place is that the service was unprofessional and not what one would expect of a French restaurant of any caliber, much less the highest-rated fine dining restaurant in the city. Red and white wine were served in the same glass. The waiter wore a ragged t-shirt and did not pour the wine after opening it. The atmosphere could at best be described as bustling; at worst, harried.

It was horrendously noisy in there. I've never been in such a noisy restaurant. I could barely hear what the person sitting across the table was saying. And this was on a Tuesday night. That, and the lighting was very bad - it felt too bright and too dark at the same time, because of the lengthwise orientation of the restaurant and the lack of good lighting.

For openers we had TARTE FLAMBÉE ALSACIENNE ($10, caramelized onion puff pastry tart, crème fraîche, ricotta cheese, lardons, grape tomato salad). A fairly pleasing dish, but not particularly revelatory or creative. This sets the tone for the evening. The fare here is traditional and to the point without embellishment.

For mains we had FILET DE BOEUF GRILLÉ ($19, tenderloin with potato gratin and glazed vegetable, red wine shallot jus) and a dish of lamb with ratatouille that I don't see on the menu on their web site so I don't have details. The tenderloin was exquisite in the red wine sauce, and went perfectly with the potato gratin, which tasted very much as my mom used to make it. The lamb, on the other hand, was disappointing - decent but humdrum and lacking in taste, certainly not the overwhelming success of the tenderloin. So it was a very hit-or-miss experience.

We ordered a bottle of Spanish Beronia Rioja Riserva 2005, which was exquisite - earthy, full of tannins, long, with great evolution and body, though the fruits were a little gone and it felt like it was peaking. A very big and bold wine, just like I like them. It went very well with both of our dishes.

There wasn't even a dessert menu. When we asked about desserts, the waiter casually recited the four uninspired desserts they offer - chocolate cake, chocolate mousse, creme brulee and lemon tart. Very original. Very creative. The chocolate cake and creme brulee were good, to be sure, but everything about this meal was too middle-of-the-road and lacking in tension and excitement. The dishes we were served didn't have an aura about them as if the chef had carefully arranged every detail. The vegetables on my plate were literally inedible - a few tasteless pieces of carrots that seemed completely out of place. Little things like this are telltale signs of a lack of spark, and the fact that they are blase about their reputation and can sit on their laurels and watch the customers roll in.

Portobello Ristorante

Portobello Ristorante @ 1429 West Broadway

I generally avoid Italian restaurants. Who wants to pay $15 for a plate of noodles that could just as easily be made at home for 1/8 the price? There is no mystery about fettucini alfredo, et al. I have no doubt that Italian restaurants worth their salt can make a better noodle dish than me. And friends speak in hushed awe about the delights they tasted on trips to Italy, with its rich culinary tradition. I just don't think Italian restaurants make for an exciting and worthwhile dining experience, as a general thing.

In our effort to try as many restaurants as possible, the other day Kweepo and I visited Portobello on Broadway near Granville. Our first choice was Cru next door, but the mains there were an absurd $35. The mains at Portobello are between $24-$28, and after my experience there I can confirm even these are laughably overpriced. The noodles range between $14 and $18, which again I find overpriced, although I predictably had better luck with these.

In summary, the pastas are decent but slightly overpriced, the mains are hit or miss, and the service is lousy. I do not feel that this restaurant is a good value. My experience is based solely on two dishes we ordered, so I can't comment on the rest of the menu. Perhaps we just chose the wrong dish, but I am not inclined to go back to check.

The first sign that things were not headed in a good direction was the emptiness of the room when we walked in. It was Friday night, and every bistro in Vancouver worth anything is completely packed on a Friday night. Clearly, people are not flocking to this restaurant.

The next sign was the casual, unprofessional attitude of the service. Instead of a person standing behind a counter greeting us and asking us for our reservation, a waiter casually sauntered up and looked askance at us until we were forced to say we had a reservation and could we please have a seat.

For our starter, we ordered the Fungo Portobello Gratinato ($10, portobello mushroom stuffed with bread crumbs, fresh herbs, served with roasted red pepper sauce). It arrived within about 10 minutes. It was quite passable, but not extraordinary in any way, and did not justify the $10 price tag.

For our mains, we ordered the Ossobuco Classico ($26, veal shank braised with red wine rosemary, carrots, celery, served with risotto) and Pappardelle Alla Romana ($14, broad egg noodles in a cream sauce ham, peas, mushrooms, fresh basil). The dishes took a long time to come out. We had been in the restaurant almost an hour before our mains came out.

We ordered a glass of Chianti Castiglioni frescobaldi to go with the Ossobuco. It had strong tannins with a little fruit, and though I usually like bold wines, it was without body and unimpressive. Very disappointing for a $9 glass of wine.

A basket of warm bread was brought out before the dishes were served. I like warm bread as much as the next person, but these were literally burning to the touch. I almost got a third degree burn just trying to break open one of the loaves. I know the importance of brining out hot food, but that was ridiculous.

I have personally eaten Ossobuco made in the traditional way, and it was a marvelous thing and a revelation about the possibilities of cooking meat. It was for this reason that I ordered Ossobuco for Kweepo, to share the experience of this one-of-a-kind traditional dish that is not so easy to find in restaurants. I hoped - no, I assumed - it would taste like the last Ossobuco I had. Hello, disappointment! The Ossobuco we had at Portobello was, in a word, tasteless. There seemed to be a hint of the trademark flavor of this classic dish hidden there somewhere, but only a merest hint. What a deception foisted on innocents who would eat this travesty and be forever turned off to the notion of Ossobuco as a tasteless, flavorless waste of $25. As if this weren't enough, the meat was on the leathery side. Every flexion of the jaw left my masseter screaming for mercy. Somewhere along the line in the course of the birthing of this dish, something went terribly awry.

The Pappardelle Alla Romana, on the other hand, was a satisfying dish, and exactly what I would expect from a pasta joint. The broad noodles were fresh and soft, and the cream sauce was unctuous without being pasty or overrich. There many pieces of ham and peas filled out the texture nicely. And finally, it came out piping hot. Italian pasta cools quickly, and I can't count how many times I've been served lukewarm pasta in an Italian restaurant, which ruins the dish. So at the very least, the pasta was spot on. Worth $14? Not really. Still overpriced for what it is, but at least not the massive disappointment that was the Ossobuco.

The thing that left me with a bad taste in my mouth was the decided lack of professionalism in the atmosphere at this restaurant among the servers. The service, while not rude or inattentive as in the case of many restaurants, was dissatisfying for a different reason - it was offhand, casual, sloppy. It was not what one would expect for the price tag. As we were getting up to leave and putting on our coats, the busboy flipped his tray impatiently behind Kweepo. The open design of the restaurant felt uncomfortable. A group of three or four people seemed to constantly be milling behind the counter/kitchen exchanging idle chatter or looking over the room. A lady I assume to be the manager was chatting away with the table behind me for the greater portion of our meal.

In short, my visit did nothing to change my general opinion of Italian restaurants. Quite the opposite, it mostly reinforced the majority of my negative perceptions.

Tojo's

There are two categories of restaurants that seem to dominate Asian cuisines in Vancouver - Asian fusion and sushi joints. It is challenging to create a fusion dish that is conceptually inventive and presentable, whilst satiating your taste buds. For some reason, Asian spices and cooking technique (mostly pan fried, grilled and steamed) does not always pair seamlessly with Western ingredients, or vice verse. Of several Asian fusion places have I experimented, including Wild Garlic Bistro , Red Door Pan Asian Grill, Wild Rice and Bao Bei Chinese Brasserie, none of them has engraved a fantastic note in my gustatory or olfactory memories. Those Asian fusion restaurants are majorly turfed in posh neighborhoods like Yaletown, or hip area such as Gastown and Chinatown, not lacking hipsters/pseudo-foodies throwing in their money for the sake of their own image and self-ego. I have heard good reviews on EN Japanese Restaurant, innovative Japanese dining with French and continental influences, which is on my list of restaurants to try out next. But I will not be surprised that dishes there are beautifully presented with pretentious portions, and jaw-dropping price tags, just like any other fusion bistros.

Sushi joints, on the other hand, are far more accessible and vary in all kinds of aspects. First, they are so abundant that you can find them in any sort of neighborhoods, humble or high-end. However, the quality does not always match up or down with models of the cars parked by the street. Second, the price range can be as low as $2 for a box of California roll for take-out, or as steep as $15 for one piece of King crab nigiri. Seafood is the essential material used in sushi making, therefore, the freshness and the quality of seafood weighs in tremendously to a sushi restaurant reputation. Tsunami Sushi on Robson street in central shopping district in Downtown Vancouver possesses the only floating sushi bar that I've known of in Greater Vancouver. It is reasonably priced, and dishes are fresh tasting and continuously made and presented in front of you. What attracts me the dearest about floating sushi bar is the mystery and excitement of anticipating what would be brought to the floating strip next, and that customers are in utter control of their own eating pace.

Omakase, loosely translated as "Entrust" or "Trust the chef" in Japanese, is a concept Japanese dining experience where the chef customizes an entire menu based on your personal preferences, presenting a minimum of 8 courses (the min. number of plates varies in different restaurants) from light appetizers to hot main dishes and wrapped up with dessert, no difference than Western dining in this sense. However, all the dishes are created uniquely, using seasonal highest quality seafood and other ingredients, a truly spiritual and lavish treatment to your taste buds. Tojo's , voted as the top sushi restaurant in Vancouver by New York Times, is the place to go for Omakase. I have been to Tojo's three times over the past two years, and tried Omakase twice in different seasons. It is about the only Japanese bistro that I've been to that serves up to its elite reputation, if not more, and the only place that when I put down my one hundred dollar bill on the check, I feel money is well spent.

During my 2nd visit to Tojo's, I was privileged to meet Chef Tojo. He is a lovely old man. Tojo works behind the bar, gives directions to his fellow chefs. He is very strict on if a particular dish of sushi needs soy sauce. Before a plate of sushi handed to us, Tojo would kindly inform us, "please use soy sauce" or "no soy sauce." Once a regular customer sitting next to me in the sushi bar was about to dunk a piece of sushi into soy sauce, I noticed a cloud across over Chef Tojo's face, then I heard a firm voice saying, "I said NO soy sauce." Unlike a typical movie sequence, the first original movie usually being the best of the entire sequence, my third time visit was an absolute charm and would be my best dining experience at Tojo's in terms of the variety of seafood, the creativity of the courses and the exquisite taste of each dish.

1. Tuna tataki topped with grated ginger, sprinkled finely chopped green onion and loosely scattered purple sprouts.


2. Morel mushroom wrap of chopped scallop and fish paste, pan fried with dry seaweed coat; nested on a bed of buttered spinach, topped by bonito (dried fish flakes). The photo does not justify the quality, and it did not look like the most appetizing dish, but it turned out to be the most surprising and mouth-watering dish of the whole meal.



3. Octopus salad - elegantly sliced octopus, garnished with canola petals and thinly picked kelp, rested on a mat of fresh Japanese seaweed. Special house sauce drizzled atop. Chef Tojo's creations are artistic and playful, always alternating a cold and hot dish to tease our palate.




4. Smoked sable fish rolled in playfully sliced pine mushroom, asparagus, daikon root and fresh mango pieces. It is a quite substantial dish, and the smoke sable fish is about the best smoke fish I have ever tasted.

5. Spot Prawns were just in season. Hand peeled and presented before us.

6. Geoduck and cucumber mixed with spicy mayo. Geoduck has this crunchy texture perfectly paired with cucumber, of which the combination generates a creamy yet refreshing flavour. Seaweed wrap was thin, soft and crispy, free us from struggling of biting the seaweed sheet off.

7. Salmon sushi roll - simple and rich.

8. Toro Nigiri. I am a tuna girl, salmon is good but tuna and toro simply blows me away.

9. 2010 sushi roll - salmon, deep sea tuna, scallop and tamago hugging a thin layer of rice. prawn tempura stuffing. The plate was garnished by blueberry sauce, written Tojo's 2010. Chef Tojo's signature dish of 2010, purposely designed for the Vancouver winter Olympics 2010.

10. Cucumber roll - artfully prepared cucumber skin wrapping of avocado, prawn tempura, yam tempura and asparagus. Each bite renders a wonderful sensation on the teeth and the mouth chamber - cold, crunchy skin and warm, crispy, surrender by the nice creamy touch from avecado. Truly one of my favourite Tojo's creation of sushi rolls.

11. Alaska king crab nigiri

12. Uni (sea urchin) nigiri - this is a test of your open-mindedness in seafood category. If you overcome that ocean hint, sea urchin can taste quite nicely. Creamy, naturally salty and pungent. If you a stinky cheese lover, you might have the potential to a sea urchin adventure. My first encounter of sea urchin was during my 2nd visit to Tojo's, sea urchin was mingled with an assortment of sable fish, scallop and other ingridents in a nice and thick stew, it did not taste as distinguishable as it would when it comes in alone with just a tad of rice underneath. It is definitely a challenge of my palate in a wonderful way. After my two encounters with sea urchin, I felt like my appreciation for sea food has reached another level and my taste horizon has broadened.

13. Spanish mackerel nigiri

14. We finally called it a day after 13 brilliant creations by Tojo's. Our dessert comes in two cute glass cups - Left is black sesame pudding topped with two blueberries and a sliver of strawberry. Right cup contains ginger sorbet resting on a cocktail of grapefruit, strawberry and pineapple bits, a thin slice of sesame cracker graciously landed in sorbet.

The entire meal was a dreamy journey full of surprises and hidden gems. Each visit at Tojo's is very much like rebirth - there is always something new, something different and unusual, and something fun. Everything is made to perfection, so I feel perfectly pampered and satisfied. You go there, sit down and get ready to be impressed. It's not only about food, it is also about observing and learning how to eat Japanese food properly. For instance, I often see people soak a piece of nigiri in soy sauce until the rice dripping with sauce. Here is one thing that I learned at Tojo's - Less is more. Soy sauce is supposed to enhance the flavor of sushi, but it is not a must for each every dish. Many sushi rolls should be eaten sans soy sauce. Even when using it, it should be used in a minimized amount. I have also noticed that all the sushi are made with less rice than normal. I am used to seeing a big chunk of loosely packed sushi rice topped with a sliver of fish in bad sushi restaurants. This is nothing more than a poor taste. Another lesson from Tojo's is that rice is the secondary character in sushi world, it is important as bad rice can ruin the whole thing, but the essence of a sushi is what is inside or outside of rice. All the sushi tastes heavenly even just a simple salmon roll, partially because of the high quality fish they use, also it's the small amount of rice that is just enough to mellow out the seafood flavor and not too abundant to steal the thunder of the main role. Professionalism is revealed in details. Before the meal starts, customers are asked if they have any food allergies. You can also take this opportunity to let the chef know what you would like to try and what you prefer not having. The chef normally notes down your preferences and allergies onto a piece of sheet, so when he creates food for you, he'd remember.

At Omakase, your wallet and appetite is the limit. Food will be brought to you continuously unless you say stop. After 8 dishes or so, chef would kindly ask if you want to stop or continue. I strongly recommend people who claim to be a seafood lover, go to Tojo's, at least once in your life. Just go sit at the sushi bar, shout, "bring it on!" and embark on your magical seafood journey.