Arbutus

I heard about the extraordinarily affordable three course pre-theatre (<- look, that's me being British again) menu at Arbutus and Wild Honey for less than a twenty. A word of warning though. Pre-theatre implies a pre-dinner theatre. After rushing through our 6pm dinner at Arbutus and then jogging to Carousel for a 7:30 curtain, we decided our pre-theatre meals should take place a day before the actual show, which is what we did for Wild Honey. They were super nice about being speedy for us, but it just wasn't as relaxing and food-enjoyable as it should have been. I don't even remember what the food was, since I believe I said, "Just give us one of each... fast."

To start, some thinly sliced lamb with some vinaigrette. Warm, and really nice. This was probably the highlight of my meal.
I can't remember what the entree was, though I remember eating it...The dessert was crushed apples and vanilla ice cream or St. Nectaire cheese.
Three Michelin-starred courses for 17.50 - you can't really beat it.

St. John

So we went to St. John a while ago, excited since Restaurant Magazine had it ranked as the 17th best restaurant in the world in 2008. They do nose-to-tail eating, so you eat like all sorts of animal parts. It was very good, and also very affordable which is a plus.

My appetizer was little rolls of pig spleen, which were very different and quite tasty:

I had the special, which was a hare saddle and swede. I don't think I'd order hare again; it has an interesting taste to it. I guess you can call it really gamey, but I think a more accurate and more sophisticated term would be "poopy." But when it comes to eating, I'm all about trying everything at least twice, so maybe the next time will be a better experience. The swede however, was SPECtacular.


I did like the little bullets inside of the hare, althougha little warning would have been nice before I confusingly chomped on bits of metal...

Dessert was a very tasty and very British Eccles cake with a giant slab of Lancashire cheese. Giant, but not unmanageable. Quite good, really.


My mom got a half-dozen madeleines, which were very good warm, as well as the next morning for breakfast.


So St. John. Very tasty, yes. 17th in the world? I think we're going to attribute that to it's uniqueness and nose-to-tail eatingness of it all.

Yauatcha

So we've been to Yauatcha twice now, and it's quite tasty. The first time I went with my dad, and thus we ordered the cheapest things on the menu. My dim sum favorite, taro croquettes, were very good - perhaps slightly better than your standard dim sum taro croquette - but maybe not 2 pounds better. The same can be said of the chicken feet.

But they had some nice dumplings:

I think these were bamboo and something

and these were scallop and kumquat:Some other dim sum -

Sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaf:

baked venison puffs:
Some thai vegetable of sorts that was REALLY tasty:


And some great desserts, including a chestnut montblanc, a rose guy that was a bit liquerish for my tastes, a kiwi apple tiramisu, and a raspberry cheesecake of sorts. Quite tasty.
Quite good and not unaffordable. I'd go back (which I clearly did already). These posts will get better when I do them less than two months after I eat at the restaurant.

About this blog

So anyone knows me knows that I eat. A lot. They also know I'm a little crazy and that I take pictures of my food. Usually in really fancy places where it looks really weird to take pictures of your food. I've decided to put all that picture-taking to good use and have thus started this blog. I'll talk a little bit about what I eat, you can share your thoughts on the food or your experiences with the restaurants, and it will be just a gastronomically jolly time, um, for your eyes, I guess.

This blog won't record everything I eat (which, given the amount that I eat, would probably exceed blogger's storage allowances anyway..), but it will track most notable meals. These include: anything at a restaurant with a Michelin Star, anything that's terribly expensive and fancy, anything that's particularly unique or tasty, anything that is on some kind of top list, anything/everything I eat when I'm travelling, and basically anything that I happen to take a picture of. So yeah, basically a lot of food.

As of now, I'll start this blog with some recent meals. But since I don't eat fancy all that often, I'll intersperse them with past super meals when travelling, or when living in Las Vegas or New York. Enjoy!