I experienced Dine Out Vancouver for the first time last Saturday. Dine Out Vancouver happens once a year for a couple of weeks, participating restaurants put together a special menu for people to sample their cuisine without breaking the bank. One can enjoy a three-course dinner for $18, $28 or $38 per person.

We went to a place called Aqua Riva which is by the waterfront. It's a pretty nice restaurant. It has a nice view of the water front and the sails of Canada Place. They also serve Ocean Wise seafood.


The dinner included bread in to snack on as we waited for our dishes to come. Two types of bread and with butter and diced tomatoes were served. I love warm fresh bread. Excellent.


The appetizer I chose was the Fire Grilled Prawns & Scallop – grilled endive risotto and basil vinaigrette. I think this was VERY good. I loved how the risotto tasted. The presentation could have used some more work though. It seemed they were in a rush and just plopped the risotto down in a hurry. But I don't blame them it did get pretty busy and we were a table of 9 ordering almost the same thing!


For the main entry, I chose the Wood Grilled Ribeye Steak – herb roasted Yukon gold potatoes, hazelnut & caramelized onion compote and stilton jus (medium rare) and K chose the Grilled Lemon Maple Glazed Wild Sockeye Salmon - roasted garlic & basil polenta, cucumber salsa and ginger butter sauce. Both were good but the salmon was better I thought. The steak may have been a little overdone. It was no millionaires cut that's for sure. lol All beef are ruined by the Kobe beef that I didn't know I was eating and the millionaire's cut. Nothing tastes as good anymore. LOL Still the steak was pretty good. I just didn't like eating the carrots under it. The salmon was cooked to perfection though. I highly recommend it.

To me there was only one choice for dessert: Apple and Cranberry Crisp – vanilla ice cream. Delicious vanilla ice cream. They don't put enough ice cream on. After the ice cream is gone the apple is very tart. Some other people's Crisp were all broken apart - another instance of poor presentation. But I didn't care too much - as long as it tasted good and it did!



Overall it was a good experience and it was nice to see my university friends again. It was a delicious meal that was worth the $28!