For my big three-o celebration, I had gotten together with some friends for dinner at Mosaic Grille at the Hyatt Regency Vancouver. Hitman had taken pictures but due to a technical difficulty, they are no longer available =(
Good thing I have friends that also take pictures of their food even though they don’t blog. The following pictures are all from Fannypack.
We were a sizable group so we divided into 2 long tables back to back, which really isn’t the best arrangement I thought. The whole dinner I had my back to the other table so I had to turn and crane my neck to talk to the others. I wished they had informed me of the arrangement when the reservations were made.
Hitman and I dined with a VanEats voucher. For $27 we got a three course meal.
Everyone got to start with some of their Smoked Salt Scones though. Our table thought they were REALLY really good, so good that when a friend noticed that the adjacent table had left without touching theirs she jokingly suggested we steal them for ourselves. So we did! Then a few minutes later to our chagrin another complimentary plate was brought to our table 😛 They were warm and buttery, and smokey too. But then our taste buds could’ve been skewed by the fact that we were actually half an hour late to the dinner (the rest of the party waited for us) because of traffic…and we were starving by the time we arrived.
For starters we both had the A la Minute Smoked Skuna Bay Salmon that was served with kale nori and wasabi cauliflower puree. When it was brought to the table it was covered with a clear glass dome and you could kind of see the smoke swirling inside. Not sure if it really adds anything to the salmon though…or maybe that’s what the ‘a la minute smoked’ meant….smoked for a minute 😉
When the dome was lifted we were met with a whiff of smokiness though.
My piece of salmon was a bit more cooked than I like. Hitman’s though was thicker and cooked just to my liking, so he switched his with me. This indicated to us that there may be some inconsistencies in the preparation.
This was Hitman’s entree: Seared Baja Ocean Wise Scallops with sweet potato, figs, and prosciutto. From the bite that I had I thought the scallops were done perfectly with the outside cooked and the inside just raw enough. They were sweet, big, and meaty. The figs and prosciutto went well together as always. Hitman had fun playing with the various combinations.
My entree was the Sous Vide Lamb with broccoli rabe, butternut squash, and spiced walnuts. Now I can’t really give an accurate description as I was so busy yakking away with the other table that by the time I got to my lamb, it was already cold. But despite it being cold, I still thoroughly enjoyed it. My two complaints were that there were only two small pieces, and one of them had a big membrane running through it that was chewy.
Otherwise, the lamb itself was tender and moist. I found that the entrees here were seasoned just right i.e. not overly salted.
We also ordered some sides as we were “misled” into thinking that the portions were small. Or maybe the server just was really good at suggestive selling. Anyways, we got a side of Truffle Risotto and Roasted Root Vegetables ($6 each). The risotto was alright; anywhere that I have risotto the rice always seems like Uncle Ben’s to me…and this was no different. The rice was kind of hard and chewy and under-cooked tasting. The truffle was very prominent though.
As for the roasted root vegetables, there were hits and misses….some pieces we weren’t even sure what they were and some bits were fibrous, hard, strong-tasting and inedible. When we asked our server what it was she didn’t seem to know.
For dessert Hitman picked the Mosaic Chocolate Cake which is the restaurant’s signature triple layer cake. It was HUGE. 5 people at the other table shared one and they couldn’t finish it. Mind you four out of the five were girls. But still.
We found the texture of the cake kinda dry. The chocolate cream mousse between the layers was a bit sweet but that can’t really be a complaint being that this is a dessert. That being said, it wasn’t a horrible cake by any means.
My choice was the Pumpkin and Nutmeg Creme Brulee served with some spiced biscotti cookies. This was done quite well and it tasted like pumpkin pie. It was creamy and spicy and the crackle on top had the right thickness and hardness, with no overly burnt parts. It was still very sweet though.
We couldn’t finish either desserts. But I blame that on the fact we filled up earlier on the yummy scones.
Boy were we wrong when we thought the individual portion of the cake was big….a while later the server brought out this GINORMOUS WHOLE TRIPLE LAYER CHOCOLATE CAKE for my birthday!!! Complete with candle and song. It was bigger than my head (and my head ain’t small). If we had known about this Hitman wouldn’t have picked the cake for dessert. Not a fault though.
I was extremely appreciative of this generous gesture on Mosaic’s part. It’s always nice when restaurants take the extra step to make your celebration noted. However everyone in our party was extremely stuffed by now so we did not touch this at all. I ended up getting TDog to take it home to take to our work pot luck the next day (my coworkers apparently were very appreciative also).
A day later when I got back to work there was still some cake left so I took a bite and I was surprised that the texture of this whole cake was actually quite moist and yummy, so I think it’s just the fact that the individual portions were cut open (and maybe left out a bit?) that they ended up dry and stale.
In the end, I thought the dinner was good for the most part. I don’t have any bad feelings towards Mosaic, in fact I think my food was quite good. The birthday cake at the end though was the, uh, icing on the…uh…cake.
=)
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