A guide to Dine Out Vancouver menus

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      Today (January 5) Tourism Vancouver released its Dine Out Vancouver menus to its Twitter followers through this link. Reservations are now being accepted for the annual restaurant promotion, which starts January 24 and runs until February 6.

      With over 200 menus to peruse, the choice can be overwhelming. Diners can narrow it down by price point: $18, $28, or $38 per person for a three-course meal. The largest number of restaurants falls in the middle category.

      Based strictly on menu appeal, here are some that look promising:

      $18 meals

      Westward Ho! Public House & Grill Room at the University Golf Club Start with tempura battered scallops wrapped in bacon, or a salad with honey-drenched figs, prosciutto, and crumbled Roquefort. Follow with a grilled steak, pinwheel of lemon sole and smoked wild salmon, or lamb and housemade pasta. End with a trio of desserts that includes a hazelnut tart, goat-cheese cheesecake, and bread pudding.

      The Cheshire Cheese Restaurant Serious comfort food for those not concerned about calories. Start with a cheesy French onion soup, follow with a chicken pot pie or Fisherman’s Pie with scallops, shrimp, and cod, and finish with English trifle.

      $28 meals

      The Apron Located in the Westin Wall Centre in Richmond, this restaurant has an intriguing, if slightly confusing, Dine Out menu. Starters include pickled winter vegetables with black pudding, pine mushrooms, and veal marrow. Mains include braised lamb with Israeli couscous and a spiced duck confit. For dessert, you could have baklava with pistachio ice cream.

      Monk McQueen’s Start with a surf and turf of pan-seared scallops and pork belly confit, follow with braised lamb farfelle or pumpkin risotto, and end with banana and chocolate bread pudding with caramel ice cream.

      $38 meals

      MARKET by Jean-Georges This menu appears to be inspired by Jean-George’s New York Spice Market restaurant. Start with tuna tartare, follow with roasted lingcod with Malaysian chili sauce and Thai basil, and finish with an Ovaltine kulfi with caramelized banana and spiced milk chocolate sauce.

      Diva at the Met Choose crispy Fraser Valley pork belly with warm beet salad as a starter, duck with creamy mustard spaetzle and braised red cabbage as a main, and dark chocolate sponge cake with Anjou pear butter as dessert.

      Chambar Perhaps an obvious choice, but I ate here during Dine Out last year, and the value was unbeatable. Start with smoked sablefish, have the excellent mussels or shortrib tagine as a main, and finish with a cheese plate, if you can manage it.

      All booked? If you’re late to the reservations game, take heart. A handful of participating restaurants are operating on a first-come, first-serve basis. In the $18 category, these are Pivo Public House, the Charles Bar, Timbre, and Trattoria Italian Kitchen. In the $28 category, they are Banana Leaf on Denman, Campagnolo, and Octopus Garden. (No first-come, first-serve options are listed in the $38 category.)

      For information on Dine Out Vancouver’s culinary events such as cooking classes and beer dinners, see here. The official Dine Out website is here.

      Follow Carolyn Ali on Twitter at twitter.com/carolynali

      Comments

      3 Comments

      Fiona Philips

      Jan 5, 2011 at 9:46pm

      I'm hugely looking forward to Dine Out Vancouver, but the choice of photo with this PR piece is hilarious- grey besuited Vancouverites, boring as porridge. I bet they're property developers.

      Pat Cro

      Jan 6, 2011 at 4:41pm

      Nope, not doing this anymore.
      Been spanked too many times in overpriced, ridiculously small portioned, Vancouver restuarants.
      Stick it Pino's/Fennies et al.
      We're doing our fine dining and drinking at home.
      Huge savings for the same quality and better end result.
      So tired of Five hundred dollar minimum before grat nights out of supposed fine dining and meh, again.
      O.5 was the final straw. Too stressied now with that to enjoy downtown.

      borguy

      Jan 8, 2011 at 1:44pm

      Everything about this picture screams "douchbags"