mindless ramblings

Despite the awesomely heavy spring shower this evening, we had a delightful meal at Cassis Bistro. It’s located in a really old building on the eastern edge of downtown, close to the Downtown Eastside. The place was quite empty (a rainy Sunday night after all) so we got a nice table right next to the large frontal windows. Looking over the beautiful wooden menus, we quickly realized that the prices were higher than on the website (cheap Asians eh :D). No big loss and it still looked like a good deal. We decided to order something different for each of us, and share the whole lot.

Teaser
To our surprise, we were served an amuse of prosciutto, fig and goat’s cheese. Now I haven’t been to many high end restaurants, but I’ve never been served an amuse ever before so this was a very pleasant change. It was absolutely delicious! It was a brilliant mix of flavours and textures, starting off sweet and gooey, before slowly becoming crunchy and finally a slight hint of prosciutto saltiness. All of us thought it was an excellent way to prepare us for what was to come.

Cheese Fondue
A gruyere cheese fondue was next, served with toasted focaccia bread. The gruyere cheese fondue was a big change from the gorgonzola cheese fondue I had at the HSG. Less overpowering (i.e. stinky) than gorgonzola, it paired nicely with the bread, although I didn’t enjoy dipping the grapes in them (was I supposed to?). The grapes were very sweet though, and we gobbled them up too. The foccacia bread also came in handy soaking up the next item!

French Onion Soup
Next to arrive were 2 french onion soups. These were equally good, with Esther proclaiming them to be the first french onion soup she has ever enjoyed! I would have to agree; the beef stock was rich and hearty and the onions were chopped into bits, but not to the point of becoming a puree…. just nice I think! The cheese came baked on top of little pieces of bread which soaked up the soup, very yummy!

Coq au Vin
This coq au vin was a little different from the Bistro Pastis version as it arrived with no pasta. Nevertheless we felt it was better than our first try. The free range chicken was much tastier and more tender,while the sauce more full bodied (thanks to the use of drinking wine apparently). I’d definitely try this again, especially with a bed of pasta below.

Daube de Boeuf
From the first bite to the last, the daube de boeuf was absolutely amazing. All of us were blown away by the robust flavour and stunningly tender beef. We could have ordered a plate of each one of us and I’m quite sure we would have cleaned it up! I’ve never eaten beef like this, so tender than all you need is a fork to poke at it and the meat just falls off. Even the stewed beef brisket from a Chinese noodle house isn’t as tender as this. I’m ordering this every single time I go there.

Bouillabaise
All of us agreed that the bouillabaise was probably the weakest of the four. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a solid dish, but the other 3 were better. It came with fish, shrimps and a single mussel. The soup was light and a delicate balance of flavours (saffron and fennel to name a few) came through to accompany the seafood. The only thing that threw me off was the mussel. The taste/odour was overpowering and tasted like it just came out of the sea. It kinda ruined the soup after I ate it, so I was glad I ate it last.

Seafood paella
The paella was their daily special. This was my first time trying paella and I like it! I thought it was very much like the Spanish equivalent of claypot rice. It’s a bit dryer though, but the rice was still sufficiently moist to allow thespices to exert their tastes. I thought the rice was delicious, with a little sweetness that only got better the more I ate. Too bad this came with a whole bunch of mussels, I gave them a skip and the others ate it (they were equally overpowering).

Really good hearty comfort food for a chilly spring evening then. At just over $20 per person, we got to sample 7 different dishes, all of which met with our stamp of approval. I can’t wait to go back, and this time I’ll be pairing it up with a glass of red wine!