October 9, 2014
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| Complimentary bread and butter - 2 J's comment > avg bread and avg unsalted butter; this was the 'best' dish of the night... yeah, the average bread and butter. I think this is a first in my entire history of logging dishes, thank you Diva (?!) |
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| Complimentary amuse bouche: Seared steak w goat cheese on baguette slice - 2 J's comment > slightly chewy meat, goat cheese flavor too strong; baguette wasn't toasted and was just as chewy as the 'steak' |
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| Diva roll: Tempura nori roll w smoked black cod, shiso leaf & ponzu - 1 J's comment > what an insult to the sushi roll! Even the 'lowliest', cheapest sushi joints in Vancouver give more cucumber than this miserable piece of excuse for a sushi roll; black cod was no doubt missing as you can see, so was the shiso flavor; exterior was borderline soft; ponzu sauce was passable, but I ordered a roll, not ponzu sauce; on top of everything, how dare Diva charge $12 for this pathetic rice roll?! FYI, we got the happy hour price of $6, but that's $6 too much; actually, no, you can't even pay me to eat this garbage Oh, and this is what the Diva roll looked like in the past; don't bother anymore |
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| Foie Gras Brule: Onion marmalade, caper tuile, gold leaf, brioche - 1 J's comment > I've never met a foie that I didn't like, even if only as a '2', average; another first that Diva is intent on gracing me with; the yellowish mixture mousse underneath the obviously capped on brulee sugar had hardly any foie flavor in it, the texture was like a firm mousse, didn't get the marmalade or caper at all; brioche was OK, soft and fluffy; BTW, the brulee wasn't even torched on, but prepped ahead of time and just plopped on - I could tell because I had barely pushed at it with my spoon and the whole sugar crust slipped to the side in one piece; the sugar crust was also really hard and I wasn't sure what you're supposed to do with it; I cracked it up and tried to eat w the foie but the flavors were just horrible and the clash of the extremely hard brulee and mousse was abyssmal |
Dinner Menu
Tasting Course
Lounge Menu
FYI, the 50% off Happy Hour Appies is only on select items from this menu
Extra Comments
Major rant warning
Wow... how the mighty have fallen... after the departure of executive chef Hamid Salimian this is now what Diva has fallen to.
We sat down at 5:10pm and as we were placing our order, confirmed about the happy hour specials. The server appeared confused and said that promotion was only for the lounge menu. Well OK, I had called ahead yesterday to confirm if the happy hour 50% off appies was still going on at Diva and the person on the other line said yes it is. I guess it's my fault that I didn't presume to clarify which menu it was from cause of course Diva has a lounge and dinner menu separate from each other. What was I thinking?! That the word 'appies' would apply to the dinner menu under 'appetizers'?! How ridiculous.
So whatever, I really wanted to try the foie brulee (we all know how that turned out above), so we went ahead and got that, the Diva Roll (another failure), and a few other items from the lounge menu cause our server got us the lounge menu and told us that it was 50% off this lounge menu. 10 mins later he comes back and says he was wrong, the 50% off appies is only on certain appies on the lounge menu. Oh boy, by now I should have just gotten up and leave but what can I say, I was still on a Diva high from my past 6 experiences. So he advised us that he had held our orders so that we can modify if we wanted to.
Recap so far:
5:10pm - we sat down, reviewed dinner menu, made our selection, tried to order, and was told that the promotion does not apply
5:20pm - we get the new lounge menu, made our selection, order was taken
5:30pm - our server comes back and tells us that the promotion does not apply to all our selections, we get a new menu
5:35pm - we tell the server our new selections and our order finally makes its way to the kitchen
Got that?
OK, so another 20 mins float by, for food that was just slapped together so carelessly, I really don't see how it could take longer than 5 mins. Server now brings us the Diva Roll and a plate of fries. WTF?! So I ask him what the fries were to be polite, maybe the foie was buried underneath the fries?! He apologizes and says he had given us the wrong order and takes both away.
6:00 pm - I start losing my temper, flag down another server and asked him to cancel whatever hasn't been made yet.
6:05pm - we finally get our Diva Roll and the foie and what a disaster that was (see above if you missed it).
6:15pm - we ask for the bill, and of course the Diva Roll was charged at full price of $12.
We recalculated the correct amount on our own and paid the EXACT amount for the food (although in retrospect we should have just walked out) before walking out... for good. Nope, never coming back here, not as long as this 'team' of chefs and servers are working here.
Now where is Chef Hamid Salimian again...?
Previous posts
Mar 26, 2014 (lunch)
Dec 27, 2013
Apr 18, 2013
Feb 7, 2013
Jan 25, 2013
Nov 5, 2012
Labels: downtown, fine dining, hotel, howe, western
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