VCC’s International Culinary Arts students are bringing the Chef’s Table pop-up kitchen back to the VCC Broadway campus for spring of 2017 and runs until April 21st.
It’s one of the hottest tickets in town since it’s only $30 for 5 courses and $15 extra for wine pairings. Sadly, all tickets are already all sold out for all seatings. You definitely want to sign up for the mailing list to get an email when the next time they are having this again.
This was my 4th time being here and it’s always a delight seeing the hard work the students and chefs put into this program to help grow future chefs of tomorrow. Having these kinds of Chef’s Table gives the guest a unique dining experience outside of the restaurant environment.
The tables are set up in a ‘U’ shape and everyone gets a good view of their meal being put together. Some students put together dishes and some other students do the serving. As it was the first week of the Chef’s Table, I could see some students weren’t as experienced talking to guest and explaining what some of the drinks were.
Tuna cannelloni
To start the meal, there is a tuna cannelloni stuffed with Dungeness crab. It also has Side stripe prawns, cucumber, avocado, and truffled soy pearls.
Their paired it with the Invisibull Sauvignon Blanc. A good pairing as it has lime, green apple and white peach notes.
I love the light delicate seafood dish to start. I love every part of this dish especially the avocado puree. The textures of the different ingredients worked so well together.
Grilled Octopus
This dish also has chorizo, navy bean, olive, salsa romesco with some crisps on top. Heavier in spices, this dish followed nicely and the chorizo and salsa romesco tasted so good. A lot of my friends wished they could take this dish and put it on tacos.
The wine paired with this is the See Ya Later Ranch Riesling.
Puffed foie gras
The puffed foie gras comes with apricot puree, candied almonds and a honey bubble ready to be popped. This was a similar dish I had back in Summer of 2016 when they had the Chef’s table too. A nice revisit to one of the unique dishes from last time.
This was paired with the Conviction Pinot Noir “The Priest”.
Roasted beef Tenderloin
There were 2 delicious pieces of the roasted beef tenderloin, Oxtail, potato croquette, carrot, and Cipollini. It was a delicious hearty dish, great for the meat lovers.
It was paired with the Lost Inhibitions By Church & State.
White Chocolate and Strawberries
Lemon curd Ice cream, strawberries, and topped with coconut crisp. It was a good sized dessert and it was fun watching them make the dessert with liquid nitrogen.
It is paired with Grey Monk Reflection Muscat.
Final Thoughts
Overall, it was a fun time watching all the future chefs put each plate together carefully. This time around, there were some hiccups like an items accidentally being omitted from one person’s dish and somewhat awkward service, but they are all here to learn and every guest was very kinda and understanding.
The food is always great and instructors like Tobias MacDonald really pass on their amazing knowledge to the students.
Address: 1155 E Broadway, Vancouver
Website: http://www.vcc.ca/services/eat-shop–more/the-chefs-table-pop-up-kitchen/
