Yummy Workshop

Bistro 101 has been around for a long time, but I have never been until recently. Bistro 101 is located just out­side of Granville Island, in the Pacific Insti­tute of Culi­nary Arts. Their dishes are all pre­pared by stu­dents for their culi­nary arts pro­gram as part of their practicum. They also have Bak­ery 101, where stu­dents of their pas­try arts pro­gram pre­pare the baked goods. One of the rea­son why this is a pop­u­lar place is that you can enjoy qual­ity dishes or baked goods with­out pay­ing very high prices. A three-course din­ner is $24 and they change their menu daily. I finally got to use my two-for-one coupon.

After we were greeted at the door and have sat down, a stu­dent chef intro­duced her­self and served us from begin­ning to end. Appar­ently she was grad­u­at­ing in a week, and that serv­ing cus­tomers was the last bit of train­ing. Congratz!

The envi­ron­ment of the restau­rant was quite com­fort­able, and the cus­tomers can see the stu­dent chefs through the kitchen win­dows as they dili­gently pre­pare the meals.

The menu wasn’t very big, it had three items to choose from each cat­e­gory includ­ing a starter, an entrée, and a dessert.

After we placed our order, the bread bas­ket came. It had many types of good­ies, even savoury choux pas­try and savoury short­bread. The but­ter was very good too. Accord­ing to the server, they even make the but­ter. (a lot of whipping?)

I had the Thai-style Oxtail Soup, it was very flavour­ful. The oxtail was very ten­der — almost melted in my mouth. It also had notes of cilantro and lemon­grass — the usual sus­pects when I think of Thai food. The tangy lime taste and toma­toes also bright­ened up the soup.

My mom had the Baked Mus­sels and Pink Scal­lops. She really liked it because the mus­sels and scal­lops were cooked just right so they were won­der­fully ten­der and sweet. The sun-dried tomato and roasted red pep­per were tasty and were a good tex­tural ele­ment. The pea purée was also a nice touch.

Next came the Pork Ten­der­loin, it was moist and juicy. The pear purée under­neath was very tasty as well. I loved the pine nuts here (for some rea­son), maybe because it added a very nutty, toasty flavour and a crunchy tex­ture. On the other side of the plate were some crispy mashed pota­toes with some roasted red pep­pers. The mashed potato was like mashed potato spring rolls. I think they filled the pota­toes in a fried shell. After all the breads and the starter, I was pretty full after the entrée.

My mom had the Braised Veal Cheeks. It was served on a bed of bar­ley risotto, some veg­gies, and some red wine reduc­tion. The veal cheek was VERY ten­der and fatty. How­ever, it was under-seasoned, so we had to ask for the salt shaker. The risotto was sur­pris­ingly good, unlike the risotto made with rice, this one felt less heavy and it had some bite in it as well. The red wine reduc­tion paired with the meat quite well.

Our server strongly rec­om­mended this cake, so we had to try it…and it was very good. It had good choco­late flavour and a good tex­ture. To my sur­prise, it wasn’t overly sweet with the white choco­late ganache on top and wasn’t very dense. Choco­late lovers would prob­a­bly enjoy this. The fruit coulis flower was visu­ally pleas­ing. The cook­ies fly­ing off the cake were light and crispy. I was.really.full. after the dessert, but I was smiling.

The menu said there was sup­posed to be a peach meringue, but I think it became a lemon sor­bet instead..haha. The cake was very rich in lemon flavour and the sauce added some mois­ture too. I per­son­ally would have liked it more if the cake itself was lighter and less dense but nonethe­less it tasted good.

It was my first visit to the restau­rant and I can def­i­nitely see why Bistro 101 has very high rat­ings. Their food is very tasty, the envi­ron­ment is ambi­ent, the ser­vice is also excep­tional, and at $24, you can’t expect more. At the end of our meal, we were asked to fill out a sim­ple com­ment card address­ing how we felt about our expe­ri­ence and I felt pretty good about my visit.

Con­clu­sion:

Ambi­ence: 4/5
Food: 4/5
Ser­vice: 4.5/5
Value: 4.5/5

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