Dine Out Vancouver

This is a food-oriented post, for our foodie readers... and just those who like eating, really!

This year was the 9th annual Dine Out Vancouver, a fortnight-long event held at many restaurants around the city. Each restaurant (215 participated this year) sets a 3-course "prix fixe" menu, usually with three choices per course, for $18, $28, or $38 per person. This is usually quite a bit less than the three courses would add up to normally, and is a good way for restaurants to promote their favourite dishes to new (and potential repeat) customers.

Last year we only tried out one restaurant during Dine Out Vancouver (Chutney Villa, a South Indian restaurant), so this year we decided to be really organised and try out three: one per week (the third one was a restaurant that extended the DOV deal for a few extra days). We chose Indian, French, and West Coast Canadian restaurants.

Here is our first Dine Out Vancouver night, on January 27th: Ashiana Tandoori Restaurant ($18 menu) with Harry and Verna...


Everyone's appetizers...


My delicious main, butter chicken...


Rice pudding and milk ball in syrup for dessert...


Our second DOV night, on February 4th: Mistral French Bistro ($28 menu) with (L-R) Andrew, Angharad, Juanita, Helene, Rach and Ted...


Ben's appetizer, blue cheese and pear tart...


My appetizer, squash soup (that's pumpkin soup for the Aussies)...


My main, coq au vin (literally means "rooster with wine")...


Ben's main, vegetarian pot au feu (literally means "pot on the fire")...


And for dessert, we had chocolate cake.

And our third DOV night, on February 10th: Horizons on Burnaby Mountain ($28 menu), just the two of us. We had been to this restaurant at least twice before, but not for over a year, and in that time it had a bad fire and just reopened recently after seven months of renovations...


For appetizers, we both had a yummy salad with blue cheese, pear and walnuts.

Ben's main, New York steak...


My main, amazing pork tenderloin in apple cider jus...


And for dessert, we had chocolate creme brulee.

So that was Dine Out Vancouver! The food highlights in my opinion were the butter chicken at Ashiana, Ben's blue cheese tart at Mistral, and my pork tenderloin at Horizons.

I was particularly impressed with Ashiana, given that it had the cheapest fixed price menu... the service was attentive, they went out of their way to accommodate the dietary needs of one of our group, and the food was delicious and plentiful. And despite all this, the huge restaurant was nearly empty (hopefully just because it was a weeknight though). We'll definitely be going back there!