Location: Regional Tasting Lounge 
1130 Mainland St, Vancouver BC
Website
Author: My Husband
Some of our readers may recall the post about Paris where I wrote “Business travel blends into a blur of planes, hotels, and boardrooms…”. Most frequent travelers can relate to this, where they – just for the briefest of moments – don’t remember where they are. This is especially true when travel takes you to any one of the generic-looking “developed” cities around the world.
But then there are some places that are so different, so in-your-face unique, that you can’t help but be reminded of where you are at every waking moment. Kolkata happens to be one of them. I’ve been in India for the last 2 weeks on business, and I must say that I did not, at any moment, forget where I was.
Kolkata was quite an experience, but one of the curious side effect of staying there and eating local food for a fortnight is that you begin to pine for other types of food. Now, Indian food in India is brilliant, with tastes, smells, and nuances that Vancouver Indian food can only aspire to. However, after two full weeks of eating spicy food, no matter how brilliantly cooked, I started becoming a little indifferent to it. I mean, you would get sick of lobster if you eat it everyday, no? Most people, especially people who care about food, would wholeheartedly agree that variety is the key to gastronomic happiness. Sure, taste is important, but can you see yourself eating the same beautifully cooked dish every night for dinner? I’m sure you would be willing to trade a little quality for more variety, wouldn’t you? So variety and choice is really what enjoying food is about, and that statment then provides a nice segue into the topic for this post.
During the last week of March, Christina and I were invited to a “Foodie’s night” at the recently opened R.TL restaurant. Since we are always game to try out new places, we accepted the invitation. In the interest of full disclosure, we were guests of the restaurant and did not have to foot the bill for our food and beverages that evening.
RTL is located in a cozy little space in Yaletown. We initially thought that the place was more of a lounge than a restaurant, since the L in R.TL stood for “lounge”. The darkly tinted automated sliding glass door entrance didn’t change our impression – if anything, it felt even more lounge-ish. But once inside, we discovered that it was set up like a little bistro. A bistro with very modern touches and a lounge-ish feel, that is. Carrie, who invited us, showed us to a nice table near the window and explained R.TL’s concept to us.
R.TL, as it turns out, is a full-fledged restaurant featuring a menu that focuses on three culinary regions at any given time. Also, in keeping with the “lounge” part of its name, R.TL features a wine program that allows customers to order some pretty high-quality products by the glass (more on this later).
That evening, we were given a sampler of the type of food RTL serves, along with free-range of the beverage menu. Here’s the food:
Starting from the left, a duck liver pate served on a toast point. Next, bacalhal (salt cod) fritters. Then prawns piri piri. Then a Dungeness crab and shrimp cake. Finally, a petite nicoise salad.
As you can see, the sample plate was beautifully presented, and the prawns piri piri as well as the bacalhau really tickled our palette. We would very happily order full size portions of these. The rest were decent, but didn’t stand out all that much taste-wise.
And here are the drinks:
I had a flight of Riesling, Sangiovese (actually it’s a super tuscan – Sangiovese/Cab blend), and a very nice Pinot Noir. These wines showed no sign of oxidation at all, and drank very well. For wines served by the glass, I was really impressed.
And here’s one the machines that dispenses the wine. The Enomatic machine injects the equal volume of argon gas into the bottle from which it had just dispensed, thus minimizing oxidation of the wine. This allows each bottle to keep for days, and allows R.TL to offer some expensive wines to be sold by the glass. This is a win for the R.TL, and a huge win for oenophiles who visit the restaurant.
And RTL does have a good selection of very drinkable wines. I had a quick chat with Alain the sommelier/Operations Mgr and he told me his philosophy was to buy products that he liked and was accessible to R.TL’s customers. The flight of three I had was certainly very likeable, and at the listed prices, quite reasonable.
Because the guests that evening were presented with sampler portions, the chef also prepared some full-sized plates to show us. Here they are.
We did not taste these as my wife and I had another appointment to keep, but look-wise, they were certainly appealing.
So what did we think? R.TL is quite good foodwise, but it is not at the level of, say, the Bins yet. But the ability for guests to buy wines by the glass is a definite winner. Too many times, you see something interesting available on the winelist, but cannot order as you are the lone drinker at the table. The Enomatic machines installed in R.TL has solved that problem nicely. And just for that, Christina and I will return for a few more glasses…
