Il Giardino | VanFoodies.com

Posts Tagged ‘Il Giardino’

Dine Out Vancouver Returns & Past Dine Out Reviews

Posted in Chocolate, Culinary Events, Dessert, Dine Out Vancouver, Dinner, French, Great Views, Italian, Joyce, Latin American, News, North Vancouver, Pan Asian, Seafood, Soup, Vancouver, West Coast, West Vancouver, Yaletown, tagged Bacchus Restaurant and Lounge, Baru Latino, Beachside Forno, CinCin, Cork & Fin, Dine Out Vancouver 2012, Diva at the Met, Il Giardino, Joe Fortes, La Terrazza, Mosaic Bar & Grille, Old Spaghetti Factory on January 10, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Dine Out Vancouver 2012 is set for Jan 20-Feb 5, 2012 and is now open for reservations. In its 10th year, 230 restaurants are participating in this event, offering prix fixe menus at $18, $28 or $38.

While I understand this event is meant to be a filler to help restaurants through its down time (January is usually the slowest month due to post-Christmas blues), I have always hoped and expected restaurants to treat this as an opportunity to showcase and market themselves and bring their A-game. Not usually the case. In fact, I’ve heard many stories where restaurants completely flopped during Dine Out, but redeemed themselves afterwards on a separate visit. I don’t quite get why restaurants would want to ruin customers’ first impression on them if Dine Out were their first point of contact. Perhaps thinking people are being cheap to go the Dine Out route?

Grilled Alberta AAA Beef Striploin from La Terrazza

Anyway, I thought I’d round up some past Dine Out experience that we have had in recent years (2009-2011), good and bad. Maybe this will help your research as you try to determine which ones to try. Here’s the list in alphabetically order, but I also included its menu price: (more…)

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Il Giardino Restaurant

Posted in Dine Out Vancouver, Dinner, Joyce, Vancouver, tagged Agnolotti, al dente, Antipasto, Dine Out Vancouver 2010, Il Giardino, Italian, Parmigiano, Umberto on April 28, 2010| 1 Comment »

My Dine Out Vancouver 2010 kicked off with a location that I’ve been wanting to go for a few years: Il Giardino, part of the Umberto Group. I couldn’t wait to try it such that I had to book it for the first day of the event! (OK, a little bit exaggerating but there’s some truth to it!)

Food

The advantage of doing DOV with 2 or more people is that you are more likely to try everything on the menu, as restaurants usually offer 3 options for each of the 3 courses. In this case, my parents and I did just that – we ordered one of everything, vegetarian dishes included.

Overall I was quite happy with the quality of the dishes. I personally had the Antipasto + Black Cod + White Chocolate Ganache Cake. The Antipasto Misto was of a generous portion and captured the essence of an antipasto plate you’d find in an Italian restaurant. I have to confess, though, I still haven’t learned to appreciate olives. Alaskan Black Cod was not bad; I liked that it had a crust that added texture to the soft, flaky meat. I also appreciated that they put a lot of vegetables on the side, a good balance to a heavy meal. Raspberry White Chocolate Ganache Cake was probably my favourite of the 3 desserts. Although it’s white chocolate, it’s not too sweet. And it’s very creamy. I wish the cake part was slightly thicker; now it’s so thin that it’s barely there.

As for other dishes, (more…)