Don at Kitsilano – Michelin Guide Candidate?

Don at Kitsilano serves West Coast cuisine with Asian touches. On paper, it has potential. The head chef worked in Asia, including at Michelin Star establishments, before coming to Vancouver. When I went online, I saw they had a “childhood memories” tasting menu, which always signals a promising menu to me. This is food for the soul, cooked with passion. The restaurant is about 1 year old, is it a good candidate for the Michelin guide? Lets find out. Here was the tasting menu for the evening (there is also an a la carte menu).

Upon arrival, I was impressed by the nice decor which had a modern gardenlike feel with flowers integrated into the tables (see vids below). The restaurant was fairly empty for a Saturday night, which I believe was due to the Canucks being in the playoffs and there having been a game that night. Anyway, the service started off slow. It took about 25 minutes to get our first course, and it was out of order. Our server told us that they were having problems with their oven so they were going to serve the bread after the canapes. The first course included a bite with edamame, a type of poke on a crisp, and the chef’s map tofu (inspired by his grandma). The edamame was bite was delicate and pretty good though more tame in flavor profile. The poke was good but the ma po tofu lacked flavor. Presentation was nice.

https://videopress.com/v/EiQs4bz8?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true

The next course was the bread with duck yolk butter. The bread was warm, freshly baked, moist and very soft. The butter was good enough. I appreciated that they shaped the butter like rubber ducks.

The next course was squid with black garlic. The texture of the squid was good, and the sauce was very good. This was probably the best dish of the night.

From here we moved to the smoked duck salad. One thing I did not like about the meal was the course order. The salad came as a fourth course and then soup as the last course. It was very odd. The smoked duck was ok. The flavors were mild but not bland.

The main course was a wonton lobster bisque. I thought that the broth was ok, the wontons were well cooked but not gourmet, and there were what appeared to be chunks of lobster in the dish, but they were mashed so they didn’t have the texture of lobster. Very odd.

For dessert, there was a selection of ice cream, and I chose White Rabbit because that is part of my childhood memories also. It was shaped like a rabbit and served with a shot of espresso. The ice cream tasted like white rabbit.

The meal ended with some petite fours. The best thing were the turtles that reminded me of matcha kit kat. The duck jellies were lacking flavor.

Overall, service was very good in the sense that our server was very friendly. However, the meal started off slow. I think this is excusable as I made the RSVP last minute, and due to the lack of customers, they probably did not prep much. The food itself has potential, but Asian flavors should be bolder. Also, the format of the tasting menu is very unusual with soup as a main course and salad being served toward the end. The whole meal lacks as main course. It seems like every course is a starter. I would return however, as there are a lot of interesting items on the a la carte menu I would like to try. A final thing to note is that the restaurant doesn’t serve alcohol and apparently, there is a long delay to get an alcohol license in the city. I find this frustrating and unacceptable for the local government. With increasing costs and regulations being put on businesses, such as the increase in minimum wage, to deny a small business the chance to earn additional revenue to offset these burdens is inexcusable. What makes things even worse is that the city tolerates all sorts of other poor behavior, but for some reason, is demonizing a legitimate, hard working industry. I think if the restaurant can make the flavors bolder, and fix the tasting menu format, there is a high chance it will be included in the Michelin guide. I don’t think its there yet.