Executive Plaza Hotel Coquitlam

Posts Tagged ‘Executive Plaza Hotel Coquitlam’

The Wild Fig at Executive Plaza Hotel Coquitlam

Posted in Asian, Coquitlam, Dessert, Dinner, Hotel Dining, Joyce, Meat, Pan Asian, Restaurants, Steak, West Coast, tagged Bread Pudding, Certified Angus Beef, charcuterie, Executive Plaza Hotel Coquitlam, lamb shank, prawns, The Wild Fig, Yakitori on January 14, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Perhaps with the exception of downtown Vancouver and some Richmond hotels, hotel dining doesn’t usually have a good reputation. That doesn’t stop me from being curious and wanting to try. So when the Executive Hotel in Coquitlam got a new restaurant, the Wild Fig, and was offering a coupon deal, CC and I gave it a try.

Food

Our coupon covered 1 appetizer, 2 entrees and 1 dessert. They actually have many appetizer options and some interesting ones so we couldn’t really decide on just one. With extra charge we ordered two appies instead. The Charcuterie Plate had a good combination of cured meat, including cold smoked chuck flat, pork loin, salami and sausage, with Little Qualicum cheese. Overall we were quite happy with this; the cured meat had good texture (some drier, some more moist) and a mix of flavours (smokiness and spices), but some could be borderline salty for my liking. My favourite was the cured pork loin. What also caught our attention on this plate was the Brie & Fig Chutney Pastry Rolls; you could order this as a separate item but it came with the charcuterie plate so bonus for us. It was freshly baked – warm (almost too hot to hold at the beginning), crispy on the outside and soft inside. I liked the sweet fig filling (I’m a sucker for anything fig too) but they could put more filling in the pastry.

The Coconut Breaded Prawns had prominent Asian and tropical flavours. The prawns had a nice bite, a crunchy meat texture, although the breading was a bit too dark for my liking. It didn’t taste burnt, though. The menu said “horseradish marmalade” but I didn’t taste the pungent horseradish flavour; the sauce just reminded me of a house-made Thai chili sauce, more on the sweet and spicy note, which I thought worked well with the prawns and tasted quite good. Perhaps they just didn’t add enough horseradish in the marmalade.

As for entree, I had the Zinfandel Lamb Shank. Huge portion! (more…)

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2012 BC Healthy Chef Competition – A Recap

Posted in Chinese, Chocolate, Culinary Events, Dessert, Dinner, Indian, Joyce, Lower Mainland, News, Seafood, Vancouver, West Coast, tagged Art Institute of Vancouver, BC Healthy Chef Competition, Chinese Canadian Chef Association, Copper Chimney, Executive Plaza Hotel Coquitlam, fundraiser, Hyatt Regency Vancouver, Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts, Pier 7, River Rock Casino Resort, Vancouver Community College, Wah Wing Szechuan Restaurant on March 19, 2012| 1 Comment »

Thanks to work, I was one of the lucky individuals who once again attended the BC Healthy Chef Competition that took place a couple of weeks ago. I might not have a popular blog to receive the fancy, golden media invite (I’m imagining that’s what it looked like) and sit at the VIP tables, but my coworkers and I had a lovely evening while supporting a great cause. Man, I know I said this before, but I do love my job 🙂

The purpose of this event is to help promote healthy eating while raising money for the Mix it Up! campaign, Canadian Cancer Society and the Heart and Stroke Foundation. Chefs representing 10 units were competing against each other by cooking up some tasty entrees and desserts using fruit and vegetables. Here is the list of competing units:

Chinese Canadian Chef Association
Copper Chimney
Executive Plaza Hotel Coquitlam
The Hyatt Regency Vancouver
The International Culinary School at the Art Institute of Vancouver
Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts
Pier 7
River Rock Casino Resort
Vancouver Community College
Wah Wing Szachuan Restaurant

Before we could enjoy the entrees and desserts prepared by these 10 competing units, we each had our serving of Olive Oil Poached Wild Salmon as our starter plate.

Starter Plate: Olive Oil Poached Wild Salmon, Pickled Mushroom and Potato Fondant

Then, each guest joined the line to pick up their own combination of entree and dessert, based on the envelope at each seat. The envelope contained a card that specified our entree and dessert selection randomly chosen among the ten competing units. No two guests at the same table would have the same combination of entree and dessert. There were four of us at the table, so we shared our plates to maximize the number of dishes we each got to try. In addition to that, we also picked up a few more dishes when each station was open for “seconds”. Frankly, we tried almost everything that was served that evening!