La Buca

This was my third visit to La Buca. Now, I was hoping to write that it is without a doubt my favorite restaurant in the city at the moment. My first two experiences were perfect – I couldn’t wait to return. Every single dish was flawless, service was great, wine was delicious (as I wrote) all tucked away in an intimate little room in a residential neighbourhood.

Unfortunately, our visit last night was less than stellar. In our disappointment, we were trying to figure out why. Was it because it was a Sunday? Was it because it was a holiday?! Was the chef away? Was it the game?!!!? I am hardly a hockey enthusiast, but I could hear the game from the radio in the kitchen. While our food was being prepared, the Canucks were losing game 6 (whatever that means). Later, after they lost, I overheard the waiter saying “I’m surprised the staff could even concentrate“. Well, maybe they couldn’t ….

Not that it was horrible. Far from it in fact. The experience just deflated our high expectations based on the two stellar meals we had there previously.

So we started with the Spicy Garlic Shrimp with Lemon Butter, Tomato, Parsley and Black Olive Crostini. This was great, definitely the highlight of the meal. They were incredibly generous with the shrimp for a $13 starter – at least seven pieces of shrimp, well prawns really, piled high top a nice crostini with black olive tapenade. There were crispy capers, a delicate sweet drizzling of lemon butter and tomatoes which brought a nice tartness to the plate. SO mentioned that it takes skill to take so many salty elements – shrimps, olives, capers, etc – and not let the dish become oversalted. Very happy with this.

We also ordered a quartino of the Apollonio Squinzano 2003 to share. Always delicious.

I ordered the Centre Cut Osso Buco Milanese with Saffron Risotto. It seemed apt to order “bone with a hole” in the restaurant called “The Hole”. Now I’m not stringent about my presentation – to be honest it’s the least important part of my eating experience – but I was pretty disappointed with this. The yellow from the saffron juxtaposed to the green from the beans and the red from the sauce just looked garish on the plate. And it was all quite rustic. Rustic is fine. Osso buco is a rustic dish. But for a $27 plate at La Buca, I was expecting a bit more than just rustic.

Now my meal was far from horrible. The risotto was delicious (I can say that La Buca’s risottos are consistently fantastic). The meat itself was falling off the bone, but it was a bit dry and lacking in flavour. It was a bit stringy – I’m guessing it wasn’t kept covered during the cooking process. The sauce didn’t really do anything to help flavour the meat.

There was a little spoon to scoop out the marrow. However, it was all quite greasy! I love me some marrow, but this was just too much.

All in all, my meal wasn’t bad but there wasn’t anything that encouraged me to keep coming back to my plate. Unlike our last experience when I wanted to finish every morsel of food … this time I was more than content to leave food on my plate.

SO ordered the Tagliatelle Bolognese. He was quite disappointed. He ordered this on our first visit and it was so memorable. Perfect, rich meat sauce. It felt like it had been cooking, simmering, developing flavours for hours while staying moist and rich. It was a bolognese that neither of us could figure out how to reproduce and that alone was a reason for returning.

This time, not so much. The meat sauce was meh – dry, one note, not really anything you couldn’t create in your own kitchen. SO’s real issue with that his dish somehow also tasted of clams. Clams! We saw a table across from us receive linguine alle vongole so were trying to hypothesize how their dish could have somehow imparted a clam essence that ended up in his dish. Unwashed pots? Mixing of serving spoons? It was strange. We blamed it on game 6.

So now, I have to repeat, our meal was not horrible. It was just a bit of a let down compared to our two previous visits. The last time I came I was very eager to return. This time, I don’t think I’ll be as antsy to revisit. Maybe when hockey season is over.

Beet Salad

Beet salad with blood oranges, pine nuts and mint.

I really should have roasted the beets instead of steaming them. They’re so much sweeter when roasted. I love blood oranges, but not so much in this salad. I think a tarter orange would have worked better.

This should be filed under “things I ate at La Buca and am trying desperately to recreate”. Beet salads are ubiquitous, but for some reason the one I had a La Buca on my birthday was so so good. They used pistachios instead of pine nuts, and they drizzled a dressing over it that was almost savoury … I couldn’t put my finger on it. This was a meal I had in January, and I’m still thinking about the damn beet salad – that’s how good it was!

Other things I had at La Buca – this amazing Apulian wine:

It was so delicious that we were planning a trip to North Vancouver just to buy a few bottles from the only wine merchant in the city who stocked it. Luckily, we did a bit more research and found a few closer locations. It costs double what we students normally pay for wine, but honestly it’s so so good.

Student Supper

Thrifty dinner: baked rigatoni with chorizo, button mushrooms and grana padano (aka the poor man’s parmigiano reggiano). Lots leftover for today’s lunch.

Favorite place to buy any and all sorts of cured meat/meat paté/meat in casing: Oyama Sausage Co.

The money shot.

Hearty dinner deserves an equally hearty wine. One of my favorites.

The SO was reading about Stump Jump/d’Arenberg wines: “Made exclusively from vines that have been affected by the fungal disease Eutypa dieback, the wine is amazingly concentrated and powerful.  Eutypa dieback, or “Dead Arm”, is an infection that suddenly kills grapevine shoots or limbs.  While most vineyards would rip out these vines, which produce a pittance of fruit, D’Arenberg hand-harvests the grapes from the diseased vines. The grape clusters, though small in number, are enormously flavorful, as the vine has been concentrating all of it’s remaining energy into the few clusters on it’s surviving shoots”. Fascinating!

Perfect TV dinner.