DD Mau

DD Mau is a little gourmet banh mi place in Yaletown.  I guess its location validates the high prices they charge…in any other regular Vietnamese restaurant, a banh mi is at the the most $4.75.  Hitman first heard of this place from reading about it in a newspaper, and he was very excited as they offer a choice of multi-grain bun for their sandwiches…probably no other banh mi place in the city has this option.

So was it worth the extra moolah??  We’re about to find out…

Crispy Roasted Pork ($8.80)
Crispy roasted pork + scallion chimichurri + pickled veggies + cilantro + house aioli + jalapeños + cracklin.

Gotta give them credit where it’s due, they have some pretty creative concoctions.  One of those was a Pho Dip which is obvious a play on words on the beef dip.  Too bad they were out of it the night we went…however it was still pretty early in the night, around 5pm or so, and they close at 8pm, so I wonder if they had it at all.

Rodney’s Oyster House

After Granville Island Pretty Sis and I went back to Yaletown for some food.  As we weren’t very hungry anymore and it was not yet 6pm, we hurried to Rodney’s for some Lowtide $1.50 oysters.

They offer a variety of items from 3-6pm for a lower price.  We were here specifically for the oysters but the $10 steamers intrigued me for a next visit.  The Pan Fried Oysters were supposedly a good choice too.  I’m definitely coming back.  In the end I added the Haida Gwai Candy to our order since I was intrigued by the “maple syrup” (must be the Olympic fever).

Pretty Sis kept telling me how Rodney’s Caesar ($11) is the best in the city.  I think that meant she really wanted to order it, so I suggested we share one.  It was indeed very nice.  Perfect blend of spiciness and saltiness.  I think the fresh horseradish did the trick.

Let’s Go For Dinner: r.tl – CLOSED

Update Aug 3, 2013: This restaurant is now closed.

It has been a while since I’ve been to r.tl.  I was first introduced to this restaurant when they held a foodie night early last year.  I had a good impression of the place but never got the chance to go back until now, as my good cousin came to visit from Hong Kong, Pretty Sis and I took her out for dinner in Yaletown.  Also since the introduction of the Canada Line, it’s much more convenient for me to get down there as I don’t have to worry about parking.

And as the title suggests, this is also a “Let’s Go For Dinner” participating restaurant.  If you don’t already know what this is, basically you can get gift certificates to certain restaurants for 50% off.  With a shameless plug…please use my referral code RAF315892 if you decide to sign up!  We’ll both get some goodies!

As mentioned before, they change up their menu approximately every 3 months (but I haven’t been keeping track for obvious reasons).  For this visit, they are featuring Basque (BQ), Morocco (MC) and B.C. (BC).

Not sure if they serve bread at the beginning of the meal since we ordered a bread from the menu.  This is the House made Moroccan Spiced Bread ($6).  Weird thing was, the name clearly suggests Moroccan but the menu says it’s BC style.  Perhaps it’s a typo.

Anyways this was served with a caraway & cardamom butter.  It was very fragrant and the cardamom aroma suggests a sweet taste to the butter but it was just a mild sweetness.  In fact, I wasn’t sure if I was just imagining it or it was in fact sweet-ish.  Nonetheless it was very good.

The bread itself was also spiced and made perfectly.  It was served warm and the crust was lightly crisp which is perfect for me as I normally do not eat the crust of the bread served at these types of restaurants since I find them too hard.  But again, this was perfect, the insides were soft and fluffy.  However I suggest that you eat this up while it’s warm since it get kind of chewy and tougher as it cools.

The menu also offers a 3-course $25 menu.  And the way you choose is that some of the dishes are numbered 1, 2, and 3.  You pick one of each number and that makes up your 3-course menu.  We ended up doing 2 of those and then picking 2 more items.

Above was a 1st course of the $25 menu.  They are basically skewers but is decribed as “Spikes served pintxos style (BQ)” (normally $3.50 each, which is pretty expensive but it’s Yaletown…).  They have 6 choices and we picked the Lamb Sirloin in a lime mint confit.

The meat was very juicy and tender.  The lime mint, however, was not very evident.  I did wish we had more though.

The other 1st course was the Bacalhau fritters (BQ) (normally $8) which is something we had before at Foodie night, only that time it was considered Portuguese style.  It is a deep-fried salt cod, potato and onion mash served with a pretty spicy piri piri sauce.

It was better this time for me, but I’m not sure why.  However we did comment on how dark it looked, almost as if it’s burnt (but it wasn’t, probably just old oil or dark spices).

Society Dining Lounge

Do these symbols together conjure up a specific place or restaurant?  Well Glowbal Group certainly hopes so, as it’s the marketing strategy for their new venture in Yaletown, Society.

Eat ‘n About was sent an invitation to partake in the Grand Opening Media Access party a while ago.  And it indeed was a while ago.  We’ve recently received an invite for Glowbal’s Relaunch party also which made me finally “pick up my pen” and write this.  I’m ashamed to say it’s taken me so long to write this up.  It’s mostly due to the amount of pictures I’ve taken and I didn’t know where to start!  But anyway here it is.

And obviously this is not a real review as it’s an opening party so it is not a realistic view of how the service and food quality of the restaurant part of Society is going to be like.  On the other hand, hopefully it’s give a taste of what’s to come.

“Media” (we’re “media”!  Who would’ve thought??) was to arrive earlier.  By the time we left, there was a lineup so obviously the event was a success.  Despite the crowd, the event was executed flawlessly, unlike another opening I’ve been to.

It is very kitschy like most Glowbal venues but it is quite small, explained by its location of course.

But they do have an upstairs which offers a bit more space.

r.tl – Foodie Night – CLOSED

Update Aug 3, 2013: This restaurant is now closed.

So the invite turned out to be legitimate.  r.tl hosted a Foodie Night this past Tuesday to showcase their new menu.  I was quite surprised that my little blog was actually found and the organizer thought to invite me.

r.tl is located near the edge of Yaletown.  Now coming here again has reminded why I hated going to downtown.  Parking is a b*tch.  One way streets kill me.

Anyway, Pretty Sister and I managed to find the restaurant finally. I really like the design of the entrance.  Flourishes always make me feel pretty just looking at them!

Originally I thought we were going to be late but turns out we were one of the first ones there.

r.tl stands for Regional Tasting Lounge.  Their concept is pretty simple – offer a variety of dishes from 3 different regions of the world every 3 months.  B.C. will always remain as one of the regions.

With their new menu, they are showcasing Portugal, France, and British Columbia.  They made a special menu just for tonight.  It had 5 canape selections plus a number of cocktails.  An extensive wine list was also available and was served flight style.

If you don’t know what flight style means, basically you can pick and choose a few wines (for this night we were allowed to pick as much as we’d like) and you get a small amount of each for tasting.  You will see what I mean later.

So on to the drinks first!

Now a thing about their wines.  General Manager Alain told us that they’ve recently purchased an “Enomatic” wine machine.  What that does is that it injects the inert gas Argon into the wines, preventing the wines from oxidizing.

The advantage to this is that they are able to prolong the shelf-life of opened bottles, hence allowing the restaurant to offer more than 40 wines by the glass.  If this wasn’t available, for certain wines you will only be able to order by the bottle at other restaurants.