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Steel Toad Brewpub & Dining Hall – Two Visits

March 24, 2015

My coworker had been talking about a new pub that opened recently at Olympic Village.. I didn’t believe him because I pass by or go to that neighbourhood relatively often and I haven’t seen it before! So, after a disappointing and expensive dinner at The Flying Pig, we decided to walk around. Sure enough, there was Steel Toad! How did I miss seeing this place?!
I told Macaroni about this place and she wanted to check it out as well, so we decided to have a double date dinner here a couple of weeks after. Steel Toad underwent massive construction for five years, this place used to be a warehouse of some sort.

Walking in, the place was really big and spacious! Compared to Craft next door, it is a lot bigger and that’s saying something since Craft is already a large restaurant as well. There was a bouncer and hostess that greeted us at the door. Since we had made reservations for the busy weekend night, we were seated on the second floor alcove which gave us a nice view of the restaurant.

The atmosphere there was fantastic – live, buzzing with energy coupled with a nice smooth melody of a live band that was playing that night. If anything, I would recommend going just for the energy because as you’ll find out, the food was just meh to us.
I was pleasantly surprised that the beer here was pretty cheap for a fancy gastropub! Maybe because they brew everything in house? Definitely the lowest prices I’ve seen compared to Craft, Tap & Barrel, St. Augs, Biercraft, etc etc. I forgot what I ordered, but our server recommended this to us.
Macaroni ordered the margherita pizza. This was probably the best tasting dish we had that night. The dough was nice and chewy, although some parts were super burnt and charred black. It came with a generous amount of melted cheese and the tomato sauce had a nice herb-like flavour to it.
The second dish that arrived was the roast beef sandwich, which came with a side of fries. The roast beef sandwich was pretty disappointing, it came on a single slice of plain toast that you can buy at any grocery store. For the roast beef itself, it was pretty bland. We expected more from this dish than a single slice of toast topped with flavourless roast beef and sauce.

I’m glad we ordered the pretzel, or else we would have gone hungry! The pretzel was warm, fresh, and chewy. It was lightly sprinkled with salt and the dijon mustard complemented the flavours. I really enjoyed the pretzel and would probably order it again if we came back.
The most disappointing dish of all – the shepard’s pie. I’ve never had a bad shephard’s pie until that night. To start, the server over-exaggerated at how big the portion would be, she told us it was really big and that it was super delicious. When it arrived, we all stared at the size of it and were thinking “….this is it?” The boyfriend and I shared this, and I was glad I wasn’t that hungry or else it wouldn’t have filled us up at all.

It was severely bland and lacking any type of flavour. We had to sprinkle a lot of salt on top to make this mediocre. We weren’t sure why the server had recommended this dish to us, and how it passed for “super delicious” because it was quite the exact opposite.
The service? What service? Not so great. Although our server was friendly, she was really slow and we saw her socializing with other servers instead. We tried to ask her for salt and pepper since out shephard’s pie was so bland, but she never acknowledged or checked up on us. We ended up walking to the bar and asking the bartender if we could use it. We also asked the bartender if we could get our water refilled.

On a separate visit, the boyfriend and I came back for a beer, but with caution since our first visit wasn’t spectacular. Since we only wanted to grab a couple drinks, we decided to come back as I liked the drink prices and how you can get a smaller size (250ml). We came on a late afternoon just in time for happy hour!

We weren’t planning on eating, but the happy hour deal was so great that we couldn’t pass it up. A pint of house beer and choice of pizza for $11, which is about 50% off depending on which pizza you order. We ordered the Hawaiian pizza, which came with your standard ham, pineapples and also capicola. Just like our first visit, we enjoyed the pizza and it had a generous amount of capicola!
Since the happy hour came with a pint, the boyfriend ordered one of the house beers, the saison sauvignon. It was slightly salty and a tad hoppy, it reminded me of the more popular seedspitter watermelon wit from Parallel 49.

I really wanted the beer I had last time (which was the purpose of our visit), but unfortunately they were sold out =( I settled on the Lonetree cider instead. It tasted like your typical cider, but I would have liked it more cold since I found it to be only a tiny bit above room temperature.

The service this time was phenomenal! We had a different server, who was super nice and friendly, and gave us many drink recommendations. He checked up on us many times and made our visit a delight. It’s amazing how much the service can change your perception of a place! I’m glad we gave this place a second try.

Steel Toad is still less than a year old, with room for improvement. Some of their dishes are executed nicely, while others could use work. The service is inconsistent as well, but I’m glad our second time was a lot better!

Read my reviews on Tap and Barrel and CRAFT as well, all three of which are located within blocks of each other!

Thanks for reading!
-Carmen

The Flying Pig (Olympic Village)

March 9, 2015

Happy to announce that this will be a guest post by le boyfriend. We tried The Flying Pig for the first time but we left disappointed, read on to find out why. Thanks for reading! – Carmen

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Hi everybody! Welcome to another guest post. Carmen really wanted another post from me, but I was hesitant at first. I originally intended to write my post on Fable Kitchen as part of the Dine at Fable event, but that went nowhere as evidence by the lack of a post. So here is a review for The Flying Pig, at their newest location in Olympic Village. Carmen had really wanted to try The Flying Pig for a long time, and one night we decided to visit the aforementioned location.
This location does not have big signs or bright lights on the outside of the building, and it was quite difficult to locate in the dark. Once inside, we were greeted and seated promptly. The restaurant was about 75% full when we arrived, but I found that the table we were seated at was pretty cramped. Our server was very friendly, and rang off the specials of the day for us.
For an appetizer, we ordered the Bone Marrow Cheezy Bread. Carmen heard from a friend that the bread was a “must try” item, and it did not disappoint. It was warm, fluffy, and loaded with cheese.
For her entrée, Carmen ordered the Veal Piccata. It consisted of a parmesan risotto in a lemon caper butter sauce, served with veal slices. The risotto was creamy and cooked perfectly, but that’s about as good as it gets.

The veal, while tender, was underwhelming and bland. The lemon capers gave it an overly lemony taste, which required a lot of salt and pepper to mask. It also had a slimy texture that was very off-putting.

Overall, Carmen did not enjoy it very much, and I switched dishes with her only because I could tolerate it a bit more. We both agreed, it’s not worth recommending.
Next up is the entrée I selected: The Flying Pig Signature Pork Rack. It really sounded good on paper but was sadly another uninspiring dish. The pork rack consisted of one piece of pork chop attached to the bone, served with a side of pulled pork poutine, with an apple cider reduction sauce and seasonal vegetables.

The pork was cooked very well, being very tender and juicy, but just like the veal, it was bland and poorly seasoned. Carmen tried a piece and was not impressed either. Sadly for this dish, the best part was the side of pulled pork poutine, which you can add as a side to other dishes as well. There was a generous amount of pulled pork layered on top, and the pulled pork was absolutely delicious.

Considering how poorly seasoned the rest of the meats we had that night were, this was an absolute delight. There is also a generous topping of cheese curds and gravy.

Our first experience at The Flying Pig was, overall, not a very positive one. Most of our food ended up being very disappointing, and for what we paid, we felt like it was definitely not worth the price. We also agreed that it would be worth revisiting another time.

Carmen did in fact go back to The Flying Pig (albeit their Gastown location) and had a much better experience during their happy hour. You can expect that review to be up pretty soon after this one. Until next time, thanks for reading!

Rogue Kitchen & Wetbar- Convention Center location

February 15, 2015

Hi everyone!

Sometimes, as a food blogger, you will visit one of those restaurants that are so bad that you don’t even want to waste your time writing or even thinking about it. But at the same time, you want to warn people before they go to said restaurants. Well, Rogue at the Convention Center is one of those said locations. If I knew how bad the food and service would be, I would have definitely tried another place. This place was definitely one of the worst places I’ve been to in a while, food and service wise.

Walking in, I was very impressed with the decor and location. They had floor to ceiling windows, which let in a lot of sunlight and there was a beautiful view of the water outside. Unfortunately, that’s where it stopped with Carmen being impressed.

My friend and I decided to share the chicken and chorizo cappelini, which sounded delicious on paper. What arrived and what we tasted was another story. The cappelini noodles were extremely mushy, bland and soggy. In addition, the entire plate was void of any flavour, just soggy, mushy, disgusting noodles.

The worst part of the dish was how oily it was. The entire time we were trying to stomach this down, all we saw was oil gleaming from every angle and all we tasted was bland, soggy noodles.

After a few bites, we were done and couldn’t eat anymore. I don’t know how they can serve this out to customers and charge $17 for it. Take it from our experience and save yourself the money, do not order this.
My friend and I also shared the spicy tiger prawn and pesto pizza. I had this at the other Rogue location in Waterfront station, which was really good! However, we were disappointed again when we picked up a slice, and it collapsed due to how much greasy oil was on the thin crust dough. The whole pizza was incredibly oily, to the point where it was so unappetizing that neither of us wanted to eat it anymore.

I tried to salvage it by dabbing my napkin to soak up the oil, but my napkin was drenched in oil after two slices and service was so slow and rude that I didn’t want to ask for more napkins. The pizza was also cut really badly and uneven, some of the pieces were four times larger than others. I’m sorry, but this was just terrible.

There weren’t many prawns on the dish either and tasted nothing like what I had at the other Rogue, I can’t believe they are sister restaurants.
I’m so glad that I ordered a side soup because this was the only minimal dish I had that day. This was the tomato basil soup. I’m not sure if they can cook their soups really well, OR if my standards for this place had gone so low that I thought this was good. There was a strong tomato taste to it, and had a bit of a thicker consistency. It had the right amount of herbs and saltiness, and the melted Parmesan added a nice finishing touch.

Moving on to the rude service. Service was very minimal, and when our server did come, she seemed to be in a really big rush and did not want to serve us. I asked for a hot honey water, which never came so I asked another server as she was walking by. Bad choice. She literally THREW it down on our table and walked away so fast that we couldn’t ask her to bring our server.

My friend was also missing her utensils and water, which took us three tries before our server got it for us.

It’s safe to say that I will not be returning to this Rogue location after how gross our food was and how bad the service was.

-Carmen

CRAFT Beer Market

January 16, 2015

Hi guys!

Wow, so I decided to read the reviews for CRAFT Beer Market before I wrote this post… All I can say is that I’m glad we came here spontaneously without checking the reviews (and if you’re a food blogger, that almost never happens!) or we would have missed out on a good time!

After visiting Bright Nights during the holidays, the boyfriend and I didn’t feel like going back home… so he sheepishly asked if I wanted some beer. Uhhhh… yes?! I asked him why he sounded hesitant to ask me. He said it was because we usually only grab beer or go to pubs with friends, and wasn’t sure if couples go get beer as a date. I’m not sure if couples normally get beer alone together, but I don’t really care because I’ll get beer any day! On a whim, we thought of CRAFT because we’ve always wanted to try it, but somehow always end up at Tap and Barrel across the street.

All this rambling and I haven’t even gotten to the food yet, wow. We arrived around 9pm on a busy Saturday night, and were quickly seated at a corner booth with really cozy, plush leather seats. We had a great view of the big and noisy restaurant, but were also seated in an area quiet and cozy enough to have conversation.

One thing I have to agree on with the other Urbanspoon reviews is that service here is slow, so don’t come here if you are in a rush. It took us 10 minutes before our server came. Throughout the night, I could tell that she was busy but she did make an effort to be friendly, ask how we were doing, etc.

CRAFT has an extensive and impressive amount of craft beer. The beer menu is almost endless and overwhelming! I wanted something citrus-y, and decided to try the Blanche de Chambly, a type of Belgian pale ale. It did not disappoint, and hit the spot perfectly. It was refreshing, citrusy, and light topped off with a great, velvety layer of foam. The boyfriend ordered a darker beer, the Ayinger Celebrator which was very malty and hoppy.

The boyfriend ordered the poutine, which was served hot on a pan (we were warned not to touch the pan or we would get burnt). I also read reviews that some guests received cold poutine, but ours was steaming hot and came with an abundance of melted cheese, gravy, and salt. I didn’t have many because I wasn’t feeling like fried food that night, but the boyfriend enjoyed the poutine a lot. The hotness of the fresh fries melted the cheese to a great consistency, topped off with peppers and herbs, making it a very satisfying munch.

Fun fact about me: I am not a veggie person, but the only exceptions are kale and arugula. I loooove arugula in my salads, pizzas, and flatbreads. I ordered the prosciutto argula flatbread with Grana Padano cheese. The flatbread was very doughy, and not too thin which I liked. It was topped off with a generous amount of fresh and crunchy arugula, as well as grated Grana Padano. I didn’t really taste much of the proscuitto due to the overwhelming flavours of the arugula and cheese, but I did see it there.

Overall, our visit to CRAFT was wonderful, even though service was slow. Our server was really friendly and was making an effort to check on us when she could, but it’s wasn’t really her fault. I loved the atmosphere, the long communal dining tables, the beautiful city view, and the empty keg display they had as well.

Are you a fan of craft beer, and which ones are your favourite? Have you been here before? Let me know in the comments!

On another note, I’m also currently giving away a free Cetaphil skincare set (suitable for both females and males!) until February 2nd! Read my post here to enter and full details =)

-Carmen

Peckinpah

January 8, 2015

After almost a year of wanting to try this place out, I finally was able to cross this off my mental check list of restaurants I wanted to try! Doesn’t it feel great to finally go to a restaurant you have been wanting to go to for so long? Granted, I still have many restaurants I want to try but at least Peckinpah is finally crossed off 🙂
Peckinpah is situated right on the skirts of Gastown, on the corner of Water and Carall street. At first, we almost walked by the restaurant as it was quite small, but I recognized their signature bull logo. We also walked into the take out part of the restaurant by accident, and had to leave and come through the main entrance. Oops!
Peckinpah is southern style barbeque joint, most known for their slow cooked meat and big meat platters. Walking in to the main part of the restaurant, there was a rustic and southern vibe to this quaint restaurant. It reminded me of a casual pub but with more class and character if that makes any sense. Since we came around 1:15, the lunch rush had gone and we almost had the whole restaurant to ourselves!
I started off with a root beer. All their soft drinks are from Boylan Bottling Co. I believe, so this one was no different. It was very sweet and refreshing.
I ordered the chopped beef po’boy with a choice of corn bread as my side. When it first arrived, I thought it looked smaller than I imagined. Despite its small sized, it was packed with intense and delicious flavour. It came with stewed beef brisket bits which were incredibly soft and cooked to perfection, the type of deliciousness that can only be made with patience and skill. The baguette was soft, and the lettuce and tomatoes were fresh and crunchy. Nearing the end of my baguette, I was beginning to get pretty full. I was surprised considering that I thought the portion looked small in the beginning, that’s how much beef brisket is packed in that thing!

As for the corn bread, it was a bit sweet and grainy. The outside was a bit hard, but once you chewed it, the inside was soft. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either 🙂 I would probably try another side if I came back. Our server told us that the cream corn and potato salad were pretty good.

My coworkers ordered the beef brisket sammie, which they both enjoyed. Our other coworker ordered the mac and cheese, which I fell in love with at first bite. It was extremely cheesy and flavourful. She added a side of chicken, which was marinated really well and went with the flavours of the cheese. Who would have known that a specialty BBQ meat place would have such great mac and cheese? 🙂

-Carmen