Dine Out Vancouver 2010: hidden Tasting Bar and Social Lounge

Update: This restaurant is now closed.

Dine Out Vancouver was good to me this year. I haven’t had a big miss and I’ve had the opportunity to hang out with new friends and have new, interesting conversations. Good times. Good times indeed.

My next out was to hidden Tasting Bar and Social Lounge on Robson, inside the Westin Grand.

As the name suggests, this is a lounge/bar type setting. It’s pretty small, just one long corridor but plenty of tables. The bar is at the entrance.

The menu here is $18, which was an absolutely great deal.

We all chose the Pacific Poutine with halibut cheeks, qualicum cheese curds, crispy yukon golds and lemon hollandaise.

At first, a fish poutine sounded off to us, but intriguing at the same time to be honest.

Wow did we ever enjoy it. Halibut cheeks were awesome, tender and moist. The poutine was made with a mix of yam and regular potato fries, which were a nice treat. I always loved yam fries~!

The hollandaise sauce was tangy and a nice touch. The cheese curds were nicely melted. I hate it when the curds in a poutine don’t melt.

I don’t believe this is in their regular menu which is a shame, ’cause I would gladly order it again.

My companions had the Chicken and Waffles which was fried fraser valley chicken and cheddar waffles served with an apple/jack gravy.

From what I heard, the chicken was good. Even though it was made from chicken thigh, it still managed to stay moist and flavorful.

The cheese waffles however, were a miss. They were dry and crumbly, not really cheddar-y either. If only it was more moist and fluffy, it would’ve been better.

My entree was the Smoked and seared albacore tuna with gorgonzola stuffed tatertots, kalamata coulis and sunchoke chips.

I enjoyed the gorgonzola tatertots. They are actually more like doughy dumplings, but was very strongly gorgonzola, plus they were chewy! So I really liked them. The kalamata coulis, not so much, but that’s because I never really liked olives.

The tuna itself was good. I really liked the smoked flavor. However I wished that it was prepared more on the rare side, as the underside of it was cooked so it was just a bit tough.

One of the desserts of the night was the Cinnamon dusted beavertail with Canadian whiskey, caramel sauce and house made lemon-sour cream ice cream. There were no part of this dessert I didn’t like, except maybe for the fact that it weren’t mine haha.

The beavertail was done exactly like how the ones at those fairs were. It was really sweet but the lemon-sour cream ice cream helped cure that. Boy it was so good. Mine you I only had a bite of it but I think very highly of it.

My dessert was the Root beer, hazelnut and maple ice cream parfait. It was interesting as I had no idea what to expect. At first I thought it was going to be like an ice cream float or something, but it wasn’t.

The root beer part was actually a jelly. There was fresh fruit in between then the maple ice cream. Honestly I couldn’t taste the maple part of the ice cream as I thought it was a berry ice cream as I was tasting it. The hazelnuts added texture and overall this was a light, not-too-sweet dessert that I enjoyed, but I would’ve preferred the beavertail.