Yummy Workshop

I don’t recall when I received a $20 gift cer­tifi­cate from Pre­stons, but I remem­ber all I had to do was to “like” their Face­book page as part of their mar­ket­ing cam­paign to receive one. I wanted to use it many times but never got a chance until recently when I had din­ner with my two friends. There are cur­rently two loca­tions for Pre­stons, one is on down­town Van­cou­ver and the other is in Chill­i­wack. We vis­ited the one in Van­cou­ver that day. The inte­rior is quite new and cozy, it was a sunny day, so they opened their doors by the street so cus­tomers can sit out and enjoy the nice weather. Excuse me for the photo qual­ity of an iPhone as I for­got to bring my camera.

Their menu is not very big, all their items were listed in one page. We ordered an appe­tizer and two entrée to share so we can get a bite of everything.

Pulled Pork Slid­ers — $12

First came the slid­ers, we were look­ing for­ward to this as it was one of their fea­tured items on the menu. For me it was a hit-and-miss. I enjoyed the pulled pork and the slaw but not the bun. I think the prob­lem was that it was a bit dry, per­haps they should have toasted it.

Grilled Lamb — $26

This was a grilled lamb loin with fin­ger­ling potato hash, spicy chorizo, and red wine vinai­grette. I enjoyed this dish — the lamb was cooked medium rare and the pota­toes were very flavour­ful with the sauce and chorizo. The red wine vinai­grette added a sweet touch to the dish as well.

Wild Mush­room Ravi­oli — $15

The ravoli was stuffed with ricotta cheese and mush­rooms, served with grape toma­toes, red wine reduc­tion, fresh basil and truf­fle oil. This was also one of their fea­tured items and was very tasty. The ravi­oli was very well made and cooked nicely. The wrap­per was thin and smooth while the fill­ing was creamy and flavour­ful. The red wine reduc­tion was a bit sweet, com­pli­ments the salti­ness of the cheese and caper berries.

BC Hal­ibut wrapped in Bacon — $26

After the three dishes, which weren’t very big, we felt like we wanted more so we added the hal­ibut. I am often scared to order hal­ibut, because they tend to be over­cooked or the fish is not very fresh before it is even pre­pared. How­ever, this was done prop­erly and turned out very deli­cious. Besides, who doesn’t like bacon? The fish was wrapped in double-smoked bacon, served with creamed leeks, quinoa, and honey-shallot au jus. The fish itself was cooked just right, flaky, juicy, and the bacon was crispy and salty, which went well with the au jus. The quinoa was very tasty, but I found it a lit­tle over-seasoned.

Vanilla Matcha Crème Brulee with Mini Sug­ared Dough­nuts — $8

Here comes the long antic­i­pated desserts. First we had the crème brûlée with mini dough­nuts. Again, this was a bit of a hit-and-miss. The tex­ture of the crème brûlée was a lit­tle off as it was too thin, but I did enjoy the matcha flavour. The dough­nuts were a good pair­ing with the crème brûlée.

Choco­late Brownie Sun­dae — $8

Our server par­tic­u­larly pointed out the sun­dae and rec­om­mended it so we had to try it. What can I say? It was a plate of ooey-gooey good­ness. They have decided to put together a warm choco­late brownie, vanilla ice-cream, warm choco­late sauce, and rasp­berry coulis. The brownie was fudgey and chewy, paired with the cold ice-cream and tart rasp­berry coulis, it was so yummy!

Over­all we enjoyed our visit at Pre­stons. Our server was very atten­tive, she brought over tongs and plates for us to share and made sure our water was always filled. We were well taken care of. As it was located in the down­town finan­cial dis­trict, prices were a bit high given por­tions were not par­tic­u­larly big.

Con­clu­sion:

Ambi­ence: 3.5/5
Food: 3.5/5
Ser­vice: 4/5
Value: 3/5