Last supper at Aqua Riva:
Tonight I went down to Aqua Riva to dine for the last time ever as the restaurant is set to close it's doors in a week after 15 years of serving fine dining fare to the people of Vancouver. For personal reasons I am very sad to see this happen. I spent the majority of my 20's working in the kitchen there. I did a couple years of apprenticing under the former chef there Deb Connors, and really I learned most of my line cooking chops in that kitchen. I'm going to offer up a review of the meal but also I'm going to use this to illustrate a major problem in the culinary scene here in Vancouver and in North American food culture in general.
To start we (me and my girlfriend) ordered the crisp calamari salad with pickled mango and cilantro vinaigrette, and the lobster bisque. The bisque was nice, good texture and seasoned pretty well. I found the tarragon cream that was on top to be quite a bit overpowering and the lobster flavour got a bit lost but overall not a bad bisque. The crisp calamari salad I had some concerns right off the bat, because 90% of the time when you order something like this the calamari inherently comes out soggy due to the moisture of the lettuce and the vinaigrette, but not this time. This appy was a home run for sure, well balanced flavours and great textures all around.
Next up for main course we ordered a potato fennel crusted wild sockeye salmon with parmesan polenta fries and a lemon basil vinaigrette, as well as a wood grilled flat iron steak with chorizo and scallion mashed and pan roasted broccolini. For the salmon dish, the salmon was cooked to a perfect medium rare/medium (Take note that this is how sockeye salmon is supposed to be cooked! Not well done or medium well!), the vinaigrette had great flavour and the crust was very pleasant. The polenta fries had nice texture but were a bit underflavoured for my liking, and my main complaint about Aqua Riva's food even when I worked there was the over use of cold salsas and relishes on protiens. Once in a while its fine but I feel they always overplayed that card there. The flat Iron steak was fantastic. It was cooked to a perfect medium rare as requested, sliced properly, the vegetables were beautifully seasoned, broccolini was amazing (it's my favourite vegetable) and the sauce had some hints of curry or some middle eastern flavour that really tied the dish together nicely. Only complaint I had was that the mashed potatoes were a bit underseasoned, but they were still pretty good. My plate was totally clean. Main course was awesome.
For dessert we had a banana chocolate mousse cake and a double chocolate bread pudding with rum caramel sauce. The mousse cake was pretty good, I'm not a huge fan of mousse cakes in general so it wasn't my cup of tea persay, but the texture was nice and all the flavours were there. The bread pudding has been on the menu since I started working there in 2002, and they have vastly improved on the recipe. It was warm, nice and crispy on the outside and soft inside. The rum sauce was great, and it had a nice minimalist presentation. No complaints!
Overall a fantastic meal. This is part of a $25 three course menu that is running until they close next week so I urge you to go down and get this great deal while it's still here!
Now I have to get up on my soapbox and give a sermon and a rant about how for me this situation illustrates a problem in the food scene here. When I was dining there tonight, I noticed that the place was packed. Strange for a restaurant that is closing it's doors to be packed no? The thing is people are NOW coming in for one last meal before it closes because they know it's closing. Don't know what you got til it's gone eh? I overheard customers expressing their sadness for the restaurants impending closure....which really pissed me off. I was thinking to myself hey customers, where have you been for the last 2-3 years!?? The answer is they have been eating at shitholes like Cactus Club, Earls, The Keg, etc. And yes those places are shitholes! If you eat at those places then you are dining in a shithole, eating shit food, in a giant hole.
So why do people eat at Cactus Club and the rest of the corporate slop houses as opposed to a nice restaurant like Aqua Riva? The answer is advertising, familiarity and laziness. People are familiar with them, so they go there. The food isn't better at Cactus Club than at Aqua Riva, it's not even in the same stratosphere. It sucks, plain and simple. There's no reason to go eat at Craptus Club over any of the amazing restaurants in Vancouver other than the fact that a person is lazy and doesn't want to think or take a chance.
The main misconception is that it's cheaper at a chain restaurant, which may be true but by like 4 dollars! Is a 4 dollar price difference worth eating crappy food and supporting faceless bland factory style open a cryo bag and dump out an artificial sauce type cooking over fantastic professional REAL food created with passion and technique? Not in my book, and if it's in your book then get yourself an editor and re write said book! Tonight my 3 course dinner for 2 with wine, stella artois, coffee, and espresso came to $75 with tip. Main courses alone at Cactus Club go for around $22 to $25! So add that up, 2 mains plus a couple drinks = about $75! So the same price as my meal except to eat garbage!
Here's the thing I find dumber than anything...."Oh well they have hot servers at Cactus Club". WHO GIVES A SHIT!!!! You think the girl serving you is going to go home with you for that $20 tip you just left her? If that's your mentality towards women then just get over yourself and go buy a hooker, cut the bullshit. Also, she is being nice to you because she has to.......it's her job! In any other environment she'd probably send you packing home, tail between your legs, nuts up in your throat, sobbing about how she's probably a lesbian anyways.
People in this city need to take a good look at what they are eating when they go out, who is making it, and is it worth the money you are paying for it. There are a lot of amazing meals to be had in this town, and not a single one of them is in a chain restaurant. So please, go support real chefs, real restaurants, real cooking techniques and go have yourself some REAL FOOD!
Tonight I went down to Aqua Riva to dine for the last time ever as the restaurant is set to close it's doors in a week after 15 years of serving fine dining fare to the people of Vancouver. For personal reasons I am very sad to see this happen. I spent the majority of my 20's working in the kitchen there. I did a couple years of apprenticing under the former chef there Deb Connors, and really I learned most of my line cooking chops in that kitchen. I'm going to offer up a review of the meal but also I'm going to use this to illustrate a major problem in the culinary scene here in Vancouver and in North American food culture in general.
Next up for main course we ordered a potato fennel crusted wild sockeye salmon with parmesan polenta fries and a lemon basil vinaigrette, as well as a wood grilled flat iron steak with chorizo and scallion mashed and pan roasted broccolini. For the salmon dish, the salmon was cooked to a perfect medium rare/medium (Take note that this is how sockeye salmon is supposed to be cooked! Not well done or medium well!), the vinaigrette had great flavour and the crust was very pleasant. The polenta fries had nice texture but were a bit underflavoured for my liking, and my main complaint about Aqua Riva's food even when I worked there was the over use of cold salsas and relishes on protiens. Once in a while its fine but I feel they always overplayed that card there. The flat Iron steak was fantastic. It was cooked to a perfect medium rare as requested, sliced properly, the vegetables were beautifully seasoned, broccolini was amazing (it's my favourite vegetable) and the sauce had some hints of curry or some middle eastern flavour that really tied the dish together nicely. Only complaint I had was that the mashed potatoes were a bit underseasoned, but they were still pretty good. My plate was totally clean. Main course was awesome.
Overall a fantastic meal. This is part of a $25 three course menu that is running until they close next week so I urge you to go down and get this great deal while it's still here!
Now I have to get up on my soapbox and give a sermon and a rant about how for me this situation illustrates a problem in the food scene here. When I was dining there tonight, I noticed that the place was packed. Strange for a restaurant that is closing it's doors to be packed no? The thing is people are NOW coming in for one last meal before it closes because they know it's closing. Don't know what you got til it's gone eh? I overheard customers expressing their sadness for the restaurants impending closure....which really pissed me off. I was thinking to myself hey customers, where have you been for the last 2-3 years!?? The answer is they have been eating at shitholes like Cactus Club, Earls, The Keg, etc. And yes those places are shitholes! If you eat at those places then you are dining in a shithole, eating shit food, in a giant hole.
So why do people eat at Cactus Club and the rest of the corporate slop houses as opposed to a nice restaurant like Aqua Riva? The answer is advertising, familiarity and laziness. People are familiar with them, so they go there. The food isn't better at Cactus Club than at Aqua Riva, it's not even in the same stratosphere. It sucks, plain and simple. There's no reason to go eat at Craptus Club over any of the amazing restaurants in Vancouver other than the fact that a person is lazy and doesn't want to think or take a chance.
The main misconception is that it's cheaper at a chain restaurant, which may be true but by like 4 dollars! Is a 4 dollar price difference worth eating crappy food and supporting faceless bland factory style open a cryo bag and dump out an artificial sauce type cooking over fantastic professional REAL food created with passion and technique? Not in my book, and if it's in your book then get yourself an editor and re write said book! Tonight my 3 course dinner for 2 with wine, stella artois, coffee, and espresso came to $75 with tip. Main courses alone at Cactus Club go for around $22 to $25! So add that up, 2 mains plus a couple drinks = about $75! So the same price as my meal except to eat garbage!
Here's the thing I find dumber than anything...."Oh well they have hot servers at Cactus Club". WHO GIVES A SHIT!!!! You think the girl serving you is going to go home with you for that $20 tip you just left her? If that's your mentality towards women then just get over yourself and go buy a hooker, cut the bullshit. Also, she is being nice to you because she has to.......it's her job! In any other environment she'd probably send you packing home, tail between your legs, nuts up in your throat, sobbing about how she's probably a lesbian anyways.
People in this city need to take a good look at what they are eating when they go out, who is making it, and is it worth the money you are paying for it. There are a lot of amazing meals to be had in this town, and not a single one of them is in a chain restaurant. So please, go support real chefs, real restaurants, real cooking techniques and go have yourself some REAL FOOD!
5 comments:
hey! I always liked Aqua Riva since this salesman took me there for a business lunch. Then I came back a couple times with the ex and once with friends. I have to try that menu before they close that you reviewed. And yes it's probably 2 years since my last time there. But another thing I would say that I never plan to go to Earls or Cactus, you just end up there. If you are planning a dinner you don't plan it to go there, you would think of a place like Aqua Riva, Latin Quarter, Havana, etc.
Dude have you been down to Abigail's Party? come on down, it's so good! but the portions are French size .. haha. Cheers!
Yeah I get what you are saying man, but what I'm trying to put out there is if people just decide to go for a dinner they should be more willing to either take a chance on a new place, or just realize that eating at a non chain restaurant costs the same as eating at a chain. I think people get scared off from certain restaurants because they think it will be too expensive, but in reality it isn't usually. The exception being the really high end joints like West or Essence. We never HAVE to be at a chain, it's our inherent laziness that makes us wind up there. We should all try to expand our palates and support real cooking!
Haven't been to Abigail's since 2006, I'd be down to go sometime again! We should do it up this summer.
Nice post Darin, find it funny that people are bitching that Aqua's closing. Where the fuck were they for the last 5 years? Don't go to a dying restaurant offering a discounted prix fixe to try and make some money in their last month open and complain that it shouldn't be closing. Support it at all times throughout the year if you're such a fan!
Secondly, why do people frequent restaurants like Cactus Club, Earls and Joeys so much?? It's true, the food is crap, churned out by unskilled kitchen staff, most of whom are just hoping they have a chance with one of the servers. Yeah, right! If your dining at a restaurant for the "hot" servers, go to Hooters or a nudey bar. While I'm at it, what kind of restaurant employs a blotted, frosted hair tipped "food architect" any way?
Hi Darin, enjoyed reading your blog and agree with most of it.
I too had an excellent dinner at Aqua recently and experienced a restaurant packed full of customers enjoying a heavily discounted menu.
Unfortunately I dont think we can blame the consumer here. The restaurant industry essentially shot itself in the face when it first introduced these 3 course menus for $15, $25 and $35 dollars.
What consumer in their right mind would go out and pay full price for anything when they know full well it will go on sale for 5o to 75 percent off at some point ? Its not like they NEED a restaurant meal now and have to get it today, they will wait until the inevitable SALE and go get it then. Can you really blame them ?
I was worried about this as soon as we started doing Dine Out up at Horizons a few years ago. I noticed that during the 2 weeks of "Dine Out" we were smoking busy and run off our feet. I also noticed that the 2 weeks before and after were much slower than normal.
The Vancouver restaurant crowd is not stupid. They can go out and eat every month at highly discounted prices and in excellent restaurants. All they have to do is pay attention to which restaurant is running the $25 three course menu that month and boom , they go running over there like a crazed mob of Cougars at the latest "Twilight" movie release !
I think in order to restore some balance , the restaurant industry as a whole needs to stop having these menu price wars. Its like a gas war and those restaurant that choose not to partake are left empty and starving for business.
Consumers in this day and age seem to be far more interested in getting a "deal" than a good meal.
Its quite sad really , and so is the closing of Aqua Riva, the latest victim of restaurant price wars.
Glad they are going out with a bang though, I will really miss that ugly mural !!!
I think you have a great point there chef, something I never really thought of. People do seem very deal focused in this day and age, and no you cannot blame somebody for looking to get more bang for the buck. It really is unfortunate that restaurants get business based on what deal they offer. I think that is definitely a major contributing factor to the current wave of restaurant closures and slow business that we are seeing. The rise of corporate chains plus consumerism and deal hunters.
Post a Comment