Vancouver has quite a vibrant dining scene, as I discovered on a recent trip to the coastal city. The city has cuisines from all over the world amalgamated inside it. During my stay at the Fairmont Waterfront Vancouver, we tried out the food at their all day dining restaurant, ARC Dining and absolutely fell in love with the flavours that Executive Chef Suri imparts to his dishes.

Breakfast

One of the first meals that we tried out was the breakfast on our second day in Vancouver. As last night’s dinner had been at 8 PM and it had been a 12-hour gap since my last meal, both of us were voraciously hungry. So, I ordered a double breakfast of the Eggs Benedict with Wild Foraged Mushrooms and a Smoked Salmon Bagel while Snigdha ordered the Salmon Eggs Benedict. One of the essential reasons behind the burst-in-your-mouth flavours at ARC Dining is the use of fresh produce. The earthiness of these freshly picked mushrooms really shone through the crispy fried bacon and hollandaise sauce enveloping it.

With Salmon being one of the major produces based on the Western coast of Canada, the combination with the cream cheese and capers makes it one dish that you must try out. Snigdha’s smoked Salmon Eggs Benedict had similar results when tried out. Fairmont Vancouver also has a farm to table policy which employs over 50,000 bees and it can be seen in the generous dollops of honey being placed all over the dining areas and also your room.

Dinner

As a non-vegetarian heading to North America, trying out a steak dinner is truly essential. We decided to try ours here and absolutely fell in love with the medium rare Angus Steak. But before that, it was the Cinnamon and Coffee flavoured Ol’ Fashioned that had me floored. The addition of the bitter flavour of the coffee along with the Angoustra Bitters does wonder while the Cinnamon accentuated the flavours of the orange. A wild mushroom soup made its way to the table with its deep earthy flavours. The Beef Tenderloin steak was served with a red wine jus and carrot puree along with potato fondant, baby beets, granola and some carrots roasted with caraway.

A Sparkling Experience

As we were attending the Vancouver International Wine Festival, the Sparkling Experience dinner was planned here. The dinner was going to feature six Cavas paired with food by Chef Suri again. Just as I entered, an entree of mussels along with a Juve y Camps Cinta Purpura Reserva ’14 was served out. The lovely citrus notes of this mixed blend Cava with fresh sea flavours of the Mussels and Charred Tomato was quite a good way to start the dinner. More Cavas flowed from the caves of the Juve y Camps as we chanced upon the Essential Xarel-Lo ’14. The Xarel-Lo forms the backbone of most of the Cavas and the notes on this wine made exclusively from the Xarel-Lo grapes was quite exquisite. It had a few spicy and herbaceous notes including that of Fennel, Rosemary and Thyme which was combined with the Quebec Foie Gras.

As I had mentioned earlier that Vancouver is a major centre for Seafood, Chef Suri gives us some grilled local octopus which has quite a succulent texture. Juve y Camps combines it with a crispy Reserva de la Familia 40. With so much of Spanish sparkling wines going around, it was imperative that Paella is on the menu and it definitely was. A Saffron infused paella made out with Shellfish Risotto and some shrimp from Nova Scotia combined with a Gran Juve ’13.

ARC DIning at Fairmont Waterfront, Vancouver is one of the premier restaurants to try out food which is made with local produce from all over British Columbia.