VanEats

Chris Yli-Luoma and Bruce Wright try to cook from the French Laundry Cookbook. Shades of the Julie/Julia Project. Next time cook seasonally or get a French Laundry reservation!

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Casa Dolce (5633 West Boulevard, 604 261-6388) is the latest stop on our "go out as much as possible before baby" tour!

We were pleasantly surprised by the high quality of the desserts and the ambiance. It's a great room to relax in after shopping in Kerrisdale or just to hang out.

Barb is now on maternity leave and found out that Patisserie Lebeau also sells sandwiches.

Naturally (have to cram everything in before the baby arrives), I had to try it today.

Inspired by Tim Pawsey's Brioche review in the Vancouver Courier, I had lunch at Brioche (401 West Cordova Street, 604 682-4037) on Monday.

My pick for today was one of the chalkboard specials, the Spaghetti Salsiccia for $7.95. Excellent pasta with Sicilian sausage that was flavourful and a little spicy. Mmm.

The March only Rubina Tandoori (1962 Kingsway, 604 874-3621 ) Mumbai Street Food Festival is a MUST EAT event. If you love Indian food, you must try this before it's over at the end of March!

It appears that the Roti Bistro has either moved or closed in the last three weeks. Three weeks ago, we had a fabulous lunch there! This week, Barb saw a new awning there for what looks like a new establishment.

If anybody knows what happened, please leave a comment. It would be a shame if they closed because we really loved their down home, honest, and delicious Caribbean food.

On Monday, our Chinese Culinary Arts Class met for our fifth meeting (and fourth restaurant meal) at the Golden Szechuan Restaurant (101-1788 West Broadway, 604 738-3648). Unlike the Golden Great Wall Szechuan Restaurant, the Golden Szechuan actually specializes in Szechuan food!

The colourful drink that was in our Samosa Garden write up is falooda, a drink/dessert that's popular all around India. Although there are numerous variations, falooda usually contains vermicelli, ice cream, milk, basil seeds and is characteristically flavoured with rose syrup.

Samosa Garden (3502 Kingsway, 604 437-3502) is a Gujarati style Indian restaurant with an African twist.

At the urging of Derek Miller and others, we finally tried Samosa Garden a couple of weeks ago and it was just as wonderful as they say.

A friend of mine received a humble pie from Acme Humble Pie (email info@acmepie.com or call 604 647 2263 or toll free 1 877 226 3743; they don't have a storefront).

Vancouver based Acme Humble Pie will ship one of their apple pies: either a "Humble Pie" or a "Merci Beaucoup Pie" within 3 business days to most major cities in Canada. They also sell chocolate brownies!

Great business idea! Can't wait to try a piece of my friend's pie!