Vin Room for Chanty's birthdayyy!

Happy Birthday Chanty!!! <3

On Tuesday it was the birthday celebration for one of my very best friends, Chantalle! She managed to score some hockey tickets through work and we treated her to a super yummy dinner at Vin Room first. I have to say though, I've never done tapas with more than 5 people and I think I would keep it to 4 people maximum next time. There were 7 of us and we found that we had to order A LOT of tapas. We did leave full and tipsy though! Love Vin Room's selection of bubbly, wine and oysters. They are located at 2310 4th Street SW. Here are some highlights from our night!

Starting the night off right- with some bubbly! 20% off between 4 -7 pm

Oysters for $3 with hot sauce, lemon and an apple mignonette

These east coast oysters were super briny which Chanty loves!

Lobster nachos!!! We ordered these last time but these had even more lobster meat than usual. Amazing for $12!!!

Mmmm this was one of my favorite dishes.. Just hard to be split a number of ways so we ended up getting two orders and split them. These BC seared scallops with brussel sprouts and lemon honey were $12

"Pura Vida Beef Carpaccio" aka thinly sliced, rare slices of beef with a brassica mustard (a genus of the mustard family) for $10

Yum! This seared chorizo with baby potatoes, cherry tomatoes and fresh oregano was delicious. It was great for sharing for $12 and although I was looking forward to a big bite of sausage, the thinly sliced chorizo had a great charred flavor. Yummmm!

Mmmm. my girlfriend Courtney LOVES Mexican food and this Oaxacan Mole Chicken was so tender and DELICIOUS! We tore bits of chicken and mole into a grilled tortilla and topped with the mint cream sauce. $12

This dish was a real hit at the table. Grilled calamari, fresh mint, sweet potato, bacon and peas. It was ALL about the sweet potato and bacon. Love this dish.

Each night Vin Room has a "flight and bite" which is a tapa and a paired wine and a "Vin Plate" for $40 which is the chef's daily selection of four tapas. We ordered the Vin Plate and clockwise from the top left there was Israeli couscous with smoked mushrooms in a tomato sauce with grana padano cheese... omg DEFINITELY one of the best dishes. Israeli couscous has larger grains and I love the texture, almost like pasta. To the right of that were some fried chickpeas that didn't really do anything for me, calamari in the bottom right and this DELICIOUS "squash dahl" in the bottom left made out of lentils and squash. Who would have guessed?!

This. Was. FRicken. AMAZINGGGG! I WANT ANOTHER ONE RIGHT NOW! At the last minute... And when we were all full we decided to order one last dish.. of DUCK. I don't know how I missed this on the menu and I am so glad someone pointed it out. The duck breast was served with a brown butter squash and Saskatoon berry gastrique.Think amazing sweet potato pie combined with uber-juicy duck with a crisp skin. YAAA MAMA!

Pretty amazing row 5 seats! WOO!

Partying at the Whiskey in the Dome

Family Portrait! Meet my wolf pack! ;)

After party at Jaro Blue on 17th Avenue SW... I had so many unique martinis. Thanks James!... A little rough around the edges the next day but a super fun night.

Four words: ICE CREAM BROWNIE SANDWICHES... Why didn't I think of that? Delicious!

Ryan & Jess got marriedddd!

The Fairmont Banff Springs is an enchanting place to get married. What a wedding!

On Saturday we were lucky enough to get an invite to an amazing wedding at the Banff Springs. Ryan and James grew up in the same hometown and throughout the years Jessica and I have become friends and a few of us even traveled to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico in 2008. The only word to describe a wedding at the "castle in the Rockies" is magical. From the mountain backdrop to where the ceremony took place, to the candle lit reception which was reminiscent of medieval times- we were swept away! It was one of those nights where you reconnect with people you didn't expect to and have more fun than you were anticipating. Here are some highlights! Congrats Ryan and Jess- what a great wedding!:

James and I before the ceremony

Beautiful bride! LOVED her dress!

Drinks and a bite to eat at the overpriced Rundle Lounge at the hotel... Loved how the caesar came with cheese stuffed olives, a pearl onion and a pickled asparagus though! NUMMM!

Ever wonder what a $25 champagne cocktail looks like? Now you know! We asked the waitress who said the "average cocktail was $16"... got the bill and ... $25 EACH! It was delicious though! HA!

For some nibbles we decided on this $20 charcuterie platter with raclette melted cheese, smoked local meats, potatoes (randomly) and "pickled vegetables" although the menu mentioned pickles so we were a tad disappointed on this one.

Margarita pizza was really delicious! These used to be my favorite and I haven't ordered one in a while.. I think I am re-converted.

Gorgeous cake and SO yummy!

Dinner time! We had such a fun table- party table! :)

Cuties! Had a blast with these two!

and these twooo..

Told ya we had a fun table!

How beautiful are all of the candles and the rose petals?! The lighting was so romantic.

Course #1: deconstructed caesar salad. Love the full hearts of romaine and the sweet, roasted garlic on the plate. This was a DELICIOUS dish!

Lobster bisque as course #2

Chicken entree

Or beef.. Now THAT is a steak ;)

First dance!

Served wedding cake. Thought it was great that they presented each piece with such care.

Cameras and friends lost and found ;)

Bride & Groom

Party timeeee!

Things got a bit wildddd

After party #1

After party #2... Gotta love the white jacket ;)

Piero's Pizzeria

On Friday after work one of my besties and I headed for a few drinks before I had to leave for a Pampered Chef show.. We initially stopped to pick up some vino at our favorite wine store and ended up dining at a little hole in the wall called "Piero's Pizzeria" located in the strip mall at 3220 28th Street SW. When we walked in to take a look at the menu we were overwhelmed by the welcoming personality of the owner, Piero Perrotta, who offered us a free beer and to take a peek and their pizza pie!:

Moretti Italian beer.. much better than the Corona I originally ordered ;)

Piero suggested an Italian beer which was a great idea considering his family is from Southern Italy and were on their way with a fresh batch of meatballs.. Hilarious! We HAD to order some pizza. In fact the Italian sausage, roasted peppers, pizza sauce and pasta sauce are all made in house. A few regulars cozied up to the bar with us to have a pint with us and we had a great chat with them about the quality ingredients Piero uses. Here is the pizza we ordered:

You can tell just by looking at it that they use quality ingredients.. We chose the La Calabria pizza for $21 which had tomato sauce, hot calabrese salami (great quality Italian cut), pepperoncino, blend of dried chiles, mushrooms, red onions and their house blend of cheeses. It's hard to stumble across a quality pie and fortunately this made the grade!

Check out Piero's Pizzeria! Wouldn't you rather support a local business than some conglomerate like Boston Pizza?! ME TOO! :)

Blowfish Sushi Lounge

MmMmM SUSHI! Do you crave sushi as much as I do? Maybe it's because it is not something I would whip up at home. EVER.. haha. Maybe one day I should give it a go but I prefer to leave it to the pros. I made the trek over on Friday to meet a client who works near the restaurant and it was so worth the walk! I really feel that Blowfish, located at 625-11th Avenue SW is one of the best sushi restaurants in the city. The maki rolls do take some time to come out but you are rewarded with unique sushi that offers diverse ingredients. I still want to head back to try their "Maui Roll" which has pineapple but my lunch date isn't huge on sweets ;). You can see my previous review including volcano rolls shaped as volcanoes here. This is what we noshed on this past Friday:

Miso soup that was chalk full of veggies which I have never seen in miso before. There were carrots, celery, green onion, and big chunks of tofu. Delicious! You can also get crab miso but it is a larger portion and I think the crab flavor might be lost and it wouldn't be worth the extra cost.

The waitress mentioned that the tuna was really fresh so we got these spicy tuna rolls which were mighty spicy with the jalapeno on top. Love the spicy mayo on the plate as well. The tuna inside the roll was really creamy for $12. :)

MMM! The Kamikaze roll was my favorite for $15. Tons of crunch and a lot of different fish in one roll described as "an explosion of tuna, salmon, and avocado topped with Blowfish's signature crunch and spicy mayonnaise"

This is the Blowfish Special for $16.50 (not cheap... I'm moving to Vancouver!) with tempura shrimp, tobiko, and cream cheese enveloped in salmon and mango and topped with a sweet sauce.. I LOVE this roll! It was a bit too sweet for my date though unfortunately... Too bad.. DELICIOUS! HAHA! ;)

Smoked salmon nigiri.. Thought it was weird that only one of them had some roe ?

Home Tasting Room

Happy Friday everyone! Hope you have an awesome weekend. We are headed to a wedding at the Banff Springs which we are looking forward to :). Yesterday I took a great client to Home Tasting Room located on Stephen Avenue at 110 8th Avenue. The cozy dining room wasn't too busy and I'm not sure they have gotten the word out there much but the lunch menu is great with starter plates, sharing plates (a bit bigger than an appy, meant for sharing), and entrees. Home offers a wide variety of wine and there are daily creations from their executive chef, Geoff Rogers. We decided to split four sharing plates for fun and here is what we had :):

I felt as though we needed a salad in the mix so we chose the a Caesar salad with crispy pancetta (the best part!),  hand-torn ciabatta croutons and an anchovy garlic dressing. Delicious and we loved the homemade croutons although besides that it wasn't especially unique for $14

Oh MAN this was good! The highlight of our meal for sure. Ricotta & herb gnocchi, parmesan cheese, braised black kale, beech mushrooms (small, wild mushrooms) and chili oil for $15. The gnocchi was cooked perfectly and I was surprised how scrumptious this was without a sauce for the gnocchi.

We chose the cheese tasting board for $20.. I found this one to be really overpriced for the quantity of cheese that we got. The best part was DEFINITELY the amazing house steeped lavender honey to add on to your cheese. All of these cheese were sharp and delicious.. The one on the far left reminding us of parmesan almost. There was also a roast shallot chutney in the back right which went well with the honey and the cheese. I don't recall the waitress informing us of the cheese selection though and if she did I didn't catch it....

Charcuterie Board for $21... Also not cheap. Today the board featured air dried bison, paprika salami and Hungarian salami with pickled vegetables, crostinis, house made mustard and a pork rilletes. I'm not a huge fan of rillettes but you can see it in the top left and it is similar to a pate with meat that is cubed or chopped, salted heavily and then cooked slowly in fat until it is tender enough to be shredded.. Kind of reminded us of chicken salad or something. The house made relish & mustard was the highlight on the board for me as I found the pickled carrots much too salty and had a strong taste of vinegar. I also wouldn't have minded more of a diversity in the meat instead of mainly all salami or some sort.