VanFoodies.com

Double date with WK and MS again. This time we ventured out to the Main Street area to eat at Grub. While driving along Main, I noticed the increasing number of restaurants in the area – or I just never paid attention until now – note to self that I should go eat there more often.

The menu at Grab is relatively small. The appy, salad, pizza and dessert sections are always on the regular menu, whereas the entrees are featured daily, with the fresh sheet written on a chalk board. This way it allows flexibility in what to offer depends on seasonality and availability of certain ingredients.

Daily Fresh Sheet on the Wall

Food

To start WK ordered a bottle of Red Stripe. I just had to take a picture because the bottle is really cute.

Red Stripe

We only ordered entrees here, and it so happens that both couples ordered the same combo of dishes: Beef & Duck. Mr. ordered the AAA Beef Tenderloin. It was a very thick piece of tenderloin, with a pretty good sear on the outside, and tender inside. The chef recommended it medium rare for everyone, and it came out to be a nice pink colour, and the meat was sat well to retain all the juices. The accompanying mushrooms were very flavourful. What struck me was the sprinkle of parsley on top, boy was it strong. Every time I took a bite out of Mr.‘s plate, the parsley just took over most of my palates. I could use less of that. And Mr. would probably like more potatoes in the plate. It didn’t seem to have enough carbs.

AAA Beef Tenderloin, Roasted Fingerling Potatoes, Mushroom and Roasted Garlic Ragout in Red Wine Cream, Caper, Tomato, and Preserved Lemon Relish

The Wentzle Duck Breast, in my opinion, was the better of the two. The ancho dust on the outside didn’t have any heat. That’s because ancho pepper is one of the milder chili peppers out there. Instead, it added a tiny hint of smokiness to the meat. The duck breast was flavourful and moist, surprisingly moist. I’m guessing it might have been sous-vide to have such tenderness in the meat. The gnocchi were sitting on a bed of bocconcini crumbles, so the heat of the pasta melted the cheese and I found at the bottom of the plate strings of creamy bocconcini. Compared to the Beef dish, this plate had a decent amount of gnocchi which made it quite filling. I really liked the pesto sauce with the gnocchi, but not so much the excessive amount of olive oil in my plate. Kind of gave me a “bleh” feeling afterwards.

Ancho Dusted Wentzle Duck Breast, Housemade Gnocchi with Sun-dried Tomato, Bocconcini Pesto, Tarragon Dijon Emulsion

Instead of ordering a la carte, you could also choose the 3-course Table d’Hote option. It would start with either a soup or an individual size antipasto plate, then an entree and a dessert. It’s $32 for a meat entree, or $28 for vegetarian entrees. Both of our entrees alone were $23 each. Desserts are $7-8. Doing the math, the 3-course dinner is a much better deal.

Service

I was reading Urbanspoon and people seem to be complaining about its lack of service. The service we received was pretty good, considering that there’s a 12-people party on that evening. Food came out without any delay and our water glasses were filled promptly. A word of advice, though, you do need to make reservations to get in. It’s a small restaurant, seats around 30-35 people, so we are talking about 8-9 tables of 4 per seating. That’s not a whole lot. We did see some guests get turned around because they didn’t have a reservation.

Grub on Main

And because the restaurant is small, the acoustics isn’t very good. It got quite loud that we couldn’t really hear ourselves anymore. It might be due to the big party; nonetheless, sound does get trapped in this space.

Final Thoughts

All in all, we quite enjoyed our dinner. While I would recommend others to try it, I do find Grub a bit on the pricey side. I compare it to Les Faux Bourgeois, whose entrees are mostly below $20, but the food and service were comparable to Grub, if not better. I’d suggest going with a bigger appetite and order the Table d’Hote menu. Give it a try and let us know what you think.

Grub
4328 Main Street, Vancouver
604-876-8671
grubonmain.ca