Well, here's a cool thing! It turns out there is another Vancouver restaurant (like the Meet group of restaurants) that serves a plant-based menu without drawing a lot of attention to it! If it weren't for our copy of the Plant Curious Deals Book, I would not have never have realized and we would not have had the opportunity to try another La Poutine Week entry. Cider House is located just a couple of blocks from Kits Beach Park on Yew Street. We had ordered for take-out and had planned to enjoy our lunch in the park but CH has some outside seating so that's where we ended up.
We started with the Roasted Mushroom Poutine which is their feature for La Poutine Week. It seems humorous to me that La Poutine Week is sponsored by dairy giant Saputo and yet the two poutines that we have tried so far contained no dairy products at all!
This dish was basically indistinguishable from the regular meat gravy and dairy cheese poutine that we are used to. That's not really important to us but it might be to many people. The fries were quite excellent, crispy and hot while the gravy was particularly meaty and the cheese melty. A few mushrooms and caramelized and green onions just bumped it up a notch. Very good!
It's pretty impressive that one of the great meat replacements from nature is actually a fruit. It has a texture that is just firm and a subtle enough flavour so that it can provide the palate for whatever Mexican (or Asian or Barbeque or whatever) seasoning that you want to be the basis and substance of your dish (in this case tacos). These were pretty good tacos just in comparison to other tacos without even considering the plant-based thing. Decent tortillas with pico, queso, red cabbage and pickled onions (we ordered guac on the side) made us happy!
Finally, we tried their Fish and Chips (we sort of ate a lot of French fries, didn't we?). This was made with hearts of palm. Again, the texture of the hearts of palm was pretty good. The appeal of fish and chips is really the fact that it's deep-fried, isn't it? The batter and cooking oil used added up to an old Brish fish and chip house feel and taste and we thought it was pretty good. Really good tartar sauce also.
Of course, CH has indoor seating but how could we on a beautiful Saturday afternoon? Our server was certainly personable and shared our enthusiasm for the vegan menu. For most people the real attraction here is the host of local ciders that they have on tap but we will leave that to others to review. We can say that the menu would be a perfect foil for a good cider. Again we were able to use our Plant Curious Deals Book for half off of one of our entrees. We love this thing and will continue to discover new places and re-discover old favourites.
Food 4 out of 5
Comfort 4 out of 5
Service 4 1/2 out of 5
Value 4 out of 5
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