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| A highlight dish -- crispy Pacific octopus under the ribbons of kohlrabi |
Last night friends took me out to two restaurants last night across from each other on Carrall Street in Vancouver's Gastown, just east of the downtown core.
We met at Blarney Stone, an Irish pub at 4.30pm for a drink before heading across the street to L'Abattoir, a very hot restaurant that's been around for a few years but I've never tried until now.
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| The funky-looking bar set up at L'Abattoir |
For Happy Hour, from 5.30pm to 6.30pm at the bar, all of the appetizers are 50 percent off, except for the spiced foie gras and baked oysters.
Almost everything looked great on the menu and we decided to try four dishes to whet our appetites because one of my friends had a brain wave to try another restaurant nearby afterwards.
The dishes came in pairs. First out of the gate was the confit Albacore tuna (CAD$19/$9.50). It was light and refreshing with guanciale, a cured meat, with turnip, mustard and tonnato sauce.
But things were even better with the crispy Pacific octopus (CAD$20/$10) that wasn't too chewy, with good flavours from the lemongrass and fermented chilli and topped with long ribbons of kohlrabi.
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| Delicious pan-fried veal sweetbreads on toast |
After a short break came the other two dishes. First came the popular dish of pan-fried veal sweetbreads on toast (CAD$17/$8.50). Admittedly the sweetbreads don't have much taste, but it's the garnish that's interesting, like pickled shallots, sauce gribiche, a kind of mayonnaise, and some veal tongue.
The last plate was veal tartare (CAD$21/$10.50), a beautifully presented dish with bits of crunchy bacon, grilled cabbage, horseradish and rye. It was light, but didn't have much taste.
