French Tasting Menu @ Mosaic

Mosaic at the Hyatt?  What, do you live there or something?  Sure seems like it eh?  Well, when I like something, I really have no apprehension blogging about it.  Another good example is EBO where they consistently put out good food.  As for the Hyatt, it wasn't always like that.  But with Chef Thomas Heinrich at the helm, "typical hotel food" is no longer used as an adjective when talking about the Hyatt Regency.  My wish is for more people to try the food at Mosaic and see for themselves.

From the positive experience I had at the Spot Prawn Tasting Menu (and at a reasonable $55.00 and $75.00 with wine pairings), Viv and I decided to take up the offer to try their 5-course French Tasting Menu (running from Sept 20th - Oct 18th). We started with the Rougie Quebec Foie Gras Parfait accented with calvados, pearls of apple and a marcona almond butter.  This was a healthy portion and due to its richness (with the almond adding even more), the parfait was quite filling.  It was smooth, sweet and silky, yet suffered from too much salt in our opinion.  Although there was little pearls of apple and a fluid gel of calvados, there wasn't enough counterbalance for the rich salty parfait.  Next up was the Escargot consisting of burgundy snails in the shell dressed with shallots, roasted garlic and parsley.  In a whimsical presentation, the shells were in a garden of sorts with pumpernickel "dirt" on the side topped by garlic chips.  We thought the flavour profile of the dish was spot on with a good balance of garlic, butter and acidity.

Onto our favourite dish, their interpretation of Lobster Thermidor really worked.  Buttery soft yet meaty, the slices of lobster tail sat atop a creamy and cheesy sauce.  Sure, it wasn't a classic preparation, but it was tasty nonetheless.  Again, the salt content was a bit too high when the lobster was eaten with the sauce.  The star of the dish was actually the lobster roe pomme puree.  It was smooth, buttery and bursting with lobster essence.  Combined with the lobster oil on the plate, the taste lingered in our mouths.  I wasn't a huge fan of the kale "nori" as it was too firm and did not add anything to the plate.  Our last savoury course was the Duck a la Orange made with Thiessen Farms duck breast with celery root puree and tarragon (which wasn't really apparent).  We found the duck to be prepared beautifully where it was moist and soft with a flavourful meatiness.  The celery root puree had a nice consistency and was seasoned enough. The rich, full-of-depth sauce was accented by an orange fluid gel.  One thing that should've been left off the plate was the rind leather as it was very tough to chew and stuck hard to our teeth.

We finished off the meal with a Mille-Feuille consisting of layers of flaky puff pastry with lemon cream and vanilla salted chocolate accompanied by a poached pear.  Although not mind-blowing, this was a solid dessert with nice textures and mild sweetness.  We particularly liked the salted chocolate as it elevated the flavours without adding more sugar.  The simple poached pear was soft enough without losing its texture.  This was a nice light way to end a relatively good tasting menu.  Sure, there was the salt issue and some other things here and there.  However, for the overall quality and execution, you can't go wrong for the price.

*Note - Meal and wine were comped, but gratuities were not*

The Good:
- For the price, the value is there
- Comfortable surroundings
- Not typical hotel food

The Bad:
- Use of salt was a bit excessive
- Some creative garnishes were not that edible

Garlic & Chili

For a relatively ol' skool strip mall, Parkcrest Plaza in Burnaby boasts an inordinate amount of easting establishments.  Going from West to East, there is Kam Mun Bakery, Bentei Sushi, Garlic & Chili, Red 6 and Parkcrest Diner.  None of which inspires any culinary excitement. In fact, the reverse is probably more realistic.  But then again, their main function is to serve the locals, where there is not a whole lot of choice nearby.  If one was to look at them as one, they all have something in common.  They are small and family-run with minimal decor and trend-negating rustic-type eats.

We started with the Shredded Chicken with Spicy Peanut Sauce.  The chicken itself was fantastic as it was moist, gelatinous and flavourful on its own.  Normally, I'm not a huge fan of the chicken skin, but it had such a nice gelatin texture, I just at the whole thing.  It was presented on a bed of julienned scallions, but some cucumber would've been nice.  The weakest link was the peanut sauce as it was gritty since they didn't incorporate the granulated sugar properly.  Hence, it was overly sweet and lacked any real heat. 

Next up was the Beef with Spicy Hot Bean Sauce which was very flavourful, possibly too flavourful.  It seemed a bit heavy with everything including sugar, salt and MSG.  Yet, it naturally went really well with rice (as it was intended to be).  The beef was tenderized so it was easy to chewy yet not lacking in texture either.  There was only a modest heat level though.  The accompanying veggies were crispy and vibrant, but chopped into pieces which were too small (especially the celery).

Lastly, we had the Four Seasons Beans which looked rather pale and lifeless.  Fortunately, it ate better than it looked.  The beans were a little overdone, but not mushy and there was a good amount of flavour from the ginger.  We would've liked to see more spice though.  Overall, from the dishes we sampled, the food at Garlic & Chili was decent.  Nothing amazing, but for a small little joint in the middle of a residential area, it serves the locals with honest food.

The Good:
- Friendly neighbourhood restaurant
- Acceptable eats

The Bad:
- Really small
- It's okay, but other places better

Menchie's Frozen Yogurt (Highgate)

Honestly, what's with the Froyo fad anyways?  Admittedly, I'm not a huge dessert guy, so sweets are not a priority.  However, I don't mind the occasional frozen yogurt, especially with all the self-serve options these days.  Locally, Qoola has opened several locations and I find them to be pretty good.  However, more recently, Menchies, being the bigger player, has come to town boosting some pretty famous customers.  Hey if a celeb likes it, it has to be good right?  As good as Oprah's love of Ezell's Fried Chicken?  Let's hope not at least...

So after our meal at Sushi Oyama, Gordo, Milhouse, Apu and I made our way out to Highgate for some froyo action.  The girls decided to ditch us and head out for some more substantial desserts.  Huh???  Anyways, the place was pretty busy with people scurrying around adding various toppings to their 1 of 14 froyo options including low fat.  In terms of toppings, Menchies has the market cornered in this town as Pinkberry and Qoola don't come close.  However, many people don't remember that the price is based on weight, so if you're not careful, you'll be enjoying a $10.00+ froyo.

For myself, I went for the low fat Blueberry Cheesecake which was pretty smooth and tasty despite the supposed healthiness of it all.  I added my favourite toppings which included mochi and those juicy pearls with a bit of blueberry to complete the theme. I was able to keep it around $5.00 which kept me satisfied in terms of eating.  In terms of comparing it with Qoola and Pinkberry, there is not a significant different in my opinion.  However, Menchies has the most choice, which may influence the final decision.

The Good:
- Lots of flavours
- Lots of toppings
- Relatively large store

The Bad:
- If you don't watch it, you'll be paying double digits

Sushi Oyama (Burnaby)

There we were, faced with a difficult decision.  One that was super important and would decide the fate of...  where we were going to eat after hockey.  Hey, it's important relatively speaking...  What we had was a larger than usual group and the stipulation was it had to be in Burnaby and preferably Japanese.  Okay, that pretty much eliminated the best choices as they were too small or closed for the night.  Hence, we headed to an ol' standby being Sushi Oyama.  Sure, it's far from being the best sushi out there, but there is no denying it's a good value.

With that in mind, we went in with reasonable expectations and it appeared that everyone else was there for inexpensive eats as the place was packed.  I hadn't been back since they first opened.  We started with some Chicken Karaage.  The wings were crispy with nicely rendered skin while the meat was somewhat juicy.  They were seasoned where we could taste more than chicken meat.  Next up were a couple orders of Gyoza.  Nicely fried up and not overcooked, the skin was crisp on the bottom while chewy everywhere else.  The filling was a bit vegetable-heavy, but was moist and not chewy.

Dressed more than Lady Gaga could ever imagine, the Spinach Gomae was surprisingly much less sweet than it appeared.  There was definitely a nice sesame hit, however, there was indeed too much dressing as it was swimming in it. Onto a specialty roll, we had the Black Dragon consisting of imitation crab, avocado and cucumber inside with eel, masago, bonito, mayo and unagi sauce on top. I thought the rice was a touch gummy but decent nonetheless with a mild sweetness.  The roll itself was a bit messy but it did taste good though with just enough sauce in my opinion.

Looking over the menu, it seemed like the best deal was to order Party Tray D to share.  It included an order of Deluxe Assorted Sashimi consisting of Tako, Hamachi, Tai, Tuna, Salmon, Amaebi and Hokkigai.  Thankfully, these were not sliced incredibly thick because I find that it changes the texture.  Hence, the sashimi was pretty decent considering the price.  Also in the tray was a Deluxe Assorted Nigiri made up of Salmon, Tuna, Ebi, Ika, Hamachi, Hokkigai, Tako, Amaebi, Unagi, Scallop and Masago (with 3 pcs each of salmon and tuna sushi).  The ratio between rice and sashimi was good which meant each piece was balanced.  Lastly, the tray included on each of California Roll, Dynamite Roll, Alaska Roll and Chopped Scallop.  I found the rolls to be a bit rice heavy which made them a bit dense, but otherwise, they were alright.

For some odd reason, the 2 orders of Tempura took a really long time to arrive.  But in the end, they were hot and crispy with a light batter. Similar to my last visit, Sushi Oyama provides good value much like Sushi Town and Sushi Garden.  Hence, expectations should be tempered to coincide with the price points.  No, you will not find authentic carefully prepared sushi here (well, not the Japanese kind at least), but you will find more-than-acceptable eats for a low price.

The Good:
- Well-priced
- Decent portions, but not humungous (which is a good thing)
- Interesting building

The Bad:
- Will offend sushi snobs
- Interesting building means strange seating arrangements

Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot (Burnaby)

"How do you find time in the day to do everything you do???", I'm often asked.  Generally, I don't even think about it because as the great Bertuzzi once said, "it is what it is...".  But there are times when I really wonder.  For instance, this particular day started at 9:00am at the PNE media tasting and then after that I headed into work.  Then leaving straight from work to hockey at 8 Rinks, where I got hit in the throat.  Quickly changing, showering and then stuffing my gear into my bag, I picked up Grace for our ChineseBites dinner at Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot.  Yes, poor me...  #firstworldproblems  And believe it or not, my biggest concern was whether I could swallow or not (hey, get your mind outta the gutter) or not.  It hurt, but I persevered and ate good food.  Again, poor me...

Joining Grace and myself, the usual crew of Diana, Rick, Alvin, Kevin, Sean and Amy were there to help us with the AYCE hot pot.  We were started off with some Salty Donuts and Sesame Crusted Bread.  These were to dip into the hot pot, but we ate them because we were hungry.  The salty donut was a touch dense and doughy, yet crisp on the outside while the sesame bread was light and fluffy. Following that up, we were presented with one plate each of Lamb and Beef Skewers.  I liked the lamb as it was flavourful with the usual accompaniment of cumin with a touch of spice.  I wasn't too fond of the beef as it was somewhat chewy with a few inedible pieces.

Alright, moving onto the Hot Pot, we got the soup base consisting of half spicy with peppers and the other half herbal with dates and wolfberries.  Loved the ying yang pot.  The herbal soup was actually quite mild while the spicy was not as hot as its appearance.  2 plates of Meatballs hit the table first including cuttlefish, shrimp, lamb and beef.  Naturally, the freshly made (ingredients may have been previously frozen though) meatballs were psychologically-pleasing (really!) and were texturally on point when cooked (good bounce and meat texture while tender).  Next up was a bevy of Seafood consisting of mussels, scallops, cuttlefish, sea cucumber innards, basa and shrimp.  Nothing was amiss with this selection.

Paying homage to the restaurant's namesake, we got thin slices of Lamb next. Despite the modest amount of fat, the meat was still super tender after a quick dunk into the boiling broth.  The same could be said with the Beef.  On a side note, as a public service announcement of sorts, please do not leave thinly sliced meats in boiling soup unattended.  That is a surefire way of overcooking it and rendering the wonderful meat into jerky.  Put it in and keep an eye on it.  Once it changes colour, take it out!  Sorry, personal pet peeve...  We were also presented with a variety of Mushrooms (oyster and enoki), Tofu (fresh and frozen) and Leafy Greens (tong ho, watercress, spinach and romaine).  Again, nothing to say other than they were fresh.  With hot pot, it really is about fresh ingredients and it's not rocket science, so kudos to Little Sheep for that.

Seeing how they forgot to bring us the best items on the menu (in my opinion), we decided to order some Offal including beef tendon, bible tripe, honeycomb tripe, pork liver and pork blood. Again, we found well-prepared items including tender tendon (oooo... alliteration!) and properly washed tripe.  We also tried the Garlic Beef which was tenderized.  Hence, it was flavourful and had a nice bounce texture.  We gave the Dumplings a shot too, but they were really salty.  Possibly a heavy hand with the seasoning?  Yet, that was the only item (and the beef skewers) we didn't like. Essentially, this was a pretty textbook hot pot where nearly everything was decent.  Located in the spacious old location of Sammy J Peppers, Little Sheep offers up some good competition for Top Gun Hot Pot at Crystal Mall.

*Note: This was an invited dinner where all food was comped*

The Good:
- Items were well-prepared
- Fairly large menu
- Spacious

The Bad:
- The DIY sauce station was getting a bit disheveled
- Food came out curiously slow 

Capstone Tea & Fondue (Robson)

A random cleaning of the living room yielded scrap paper, opened mail, flyers, an old Rick Astley CD (uh...) and a bunch of receipts. Into the shredder they go!  Wait, what's this?  Another forgotten Groupon?  Drat, actually a few forgotten Groupons...  I picked out the Capstone Tea & Fondue to discover it was expiring in a week. Seeing how I "never want to give it up", I quickly made an online reservation so that I wouldn't lose another Groupon to the dreaded expiry date.

One of the reasons why I bought it in the first place was because of the kiddies.  I thought they would enjoy dipping various fruits, veggies and other items into cheese and chocolate.  Well at least my daughter would because my son doesn't do veggies and fruits...  We started with a few drinks as it allowed us to get some extras with our fondue (more food essentially including a bigger helping of Ice Cream).  We got a Matcha Fruit Tea, Strawberry Real Fruit Frappe and Lychee Black Tea.  All did the job, but were rather pricey. As part of our spread, we got 2 each of the Traditional Swiss Cheese Fondue and Semi-Sweet Dark Chocolate Fondue.

If you can see it in the background, there were sprinkles, coconut slivers, graham cracker crumbs, roasted peanuts, slivered almonds and caramel crumbs for our dipping pleasure. I found the cheese to be rather thick, decently flavourful and good for adhering to the ingredients.  It was not very hot though and the serving arrangements made it easy to tip over.  The chocolate wasn't bad as it was also a decent consistency but it was overly sweet.  As the pictures illustrates, there was a selection of baby carrots, grape tomatoes, grapes, granny smith apples, bread cubes, pretzels, puffs, banana bread, cookies, banana, pineapple and strawberries.

Lastly, we got a good helping of Ice Cream Truffle Centers consisting of Green Tea, Strawberry and Cookies & Cream.  These were frozen solid which worked well with the fondue.  We couldn't finish them all because it was a bit heavy as a final item.  Even though we had 2 kids with us, there was enough food here for a big snack or light meal (but I wouldn't actually substitute an actual meal with it).  If I had to pay regular price, the type of food we got could be considered expensive.  But the whole point is to have some fun and that we did.

The Good:
- A fun activity whilst eating
- It's a social thing

The Bad:
- Not cheap
- The fondue set was cute, but easy to knock over