Monday, January 26th - DineOut Cru Restaurant and Happy Lunar New Year!!

I skipped breakfast today. I woke up feeling totally bloated after all the snacking and drinking at Whistler. I went to the office with a mug of coffee. I worked through Lunch and was still not hungry. I had another cup of coffee.

Of course, by the time I got home at 6 I was starving. I had a handful of cashews and goldfish crackers.

For dinner, I went out to another DineOut participating restaurant. Cru at 1459 West Broadway. Coincidentally, one of my friends, Joyce, who was a part of our group, is doing an internship there. She was meant to be at Blue Water but they switched her. It's a tiny restaurant nestled between the Memphis Blue BBQ restaurant and the RBC bank. It seats maybe 35 people. We were sat at a booth at the door and there is no inner door so we got a healthy gust of artic air everytime someone came or went. :-(

The ambience was cozy and the benches were comfortable. They gave us a small space heater for Joyce :-D.

The menu was as follows:

Price per person:
$38 (excludes taxes, gratuity and alcohol)
Cuisine Type: West Coast

Starter

Sweet Potato Soupwith sage infused brown butter and toasted almonds
-- or --
Beef Tenderloin Carpacciowith truffle aioli, shaved parmesan and caperberries
-- or --
Cellar Door Caesar Salad (add $3)grilled hearts of romaine, warm croutons and asiago

Main

Crispy Duck Confitgoat cheese spätzle hash with warm bacon vinaigrette
-- or --
Mushroom and Truffle Risotto with pea tendrils and parmesan
-- or --
Rare Seared Local Albacore Tunawith olive oil crushed yukon golds, braised fennel, oven dried tomatoes

Dessert

“Grand Cru” Chocolate Tortepeanut butter mousse and raspberry coulis

We had Cava Cordoniu to start for the new year and the new LUNAR new year. (I'm not chinese :-P but it's still my new year too)

We all had it all except the soup. I should have had the soup but mine was nice as well. Joyce, Kate and I all had the Caesar salad. It was served as a grilled intact, half romain heart with blue cheese dressing over top with cheese. On the side were five dice sized cubes of crutons.... the most luxurious garlic crutons ever. I don't care for the small hard variety that cut up the roof of your mouth. These were amazing. I normally don't care for Caesar salad either because they never tear the leaves small enough and you're forced to make crazy faces as you try to stuff a slightly too large leaf in creamy sauce into your mouth. Since it was served intact, you could neatly cut slices. It was nice. Vanessa had the tenderloin carpaccio. She really liked it and as did Joyce. It was definitely a decent portion. There were at least ten toonie sized slices arranged on the plate served with fresh shaved parmesan and crostini.

For main, I had the Seared Albacore Tuna, Joyce and Kate the duck and Vanessa the Risotto. I had a taste of the risotto and it was very good. And the portion was very decent without being American sized :-D. The tuna was seared perfectly though a bit cool. The tomatoes were perfect and the mash was delish. The duck eaters picked their plates clean. In fact we all did. We had a Blue Mountain Pino Noir. It was nice. A bit carmelly but it went well with the food. At times I thought it clashed a bit with the tuna if that was all I had in my mouth but I was the only seafood at the table so I didn't want to force everyone to have white. But as it mellowed and I had some my sides, the wine was great.

The desert was great. The peanut butter mousse was cool and I hate it all but I thought it was strange to have both raspberry coulee and peanut butter to compliment the chocolate.

I totally recommend. I definitely appreciated the 1.5-2x mark up on the wine instead of the 3x at blue water.

Cru Restaurant

1459 Broadway W
Vancouver, BC
V6H 1H6
(604) 677-4111