Last Wednesday, I attended another
Tasting Plates Vancouver event hosted by
Vancouver Foodster and this one happened to be in my old neighborhood! When my parents and I first moved to Vancouver, we lived at the
Hastings Sunrise community for quite some years. I moved away about six years ago and it's been quite a while since I've visited the area. Interestingly, the community changed a lot over the years; the dine-out scene, especially, got significantly better and hipper. Read all about the places I visited, click.......
If you aren't familiar, Tasting Plates Vancouver are tasting events held at various neighbourhoods in Vancouver. During each event, you get a map and a guide and visit various pre-set locales to try out a sampler menu that best showcases the restaurant. For the East Village event, we went to a total of seven places, three of which were cafes, two bars, and an olive oil tasting bar. Today I'll be talking about all the cafes we visited:
Pallet Coffee Roasters:
A super modern and spacious two-level cafe, this was the first place we visited and I think we were all super impressed with the open-concept kitchen and the friendly service. On the coffee menu are the in-house roasted Americano and Cortado. I picked the Cortado, which is espresso mixed with a little bit of milk. I'm not an espresso connoisseur nor do I even drink coffee on a regular basis but the taste was rich, creamy and enjoyable!
 |
| Spacious interior of Pallet Coffee Roasters |
On the tasting plate was a beef brisket sandwich with a side of spinach and mushroom salad. Inside the sandwich are delicious, tender beef slices spread with remoulade (french condiment similar to tartar sauce), caramelized onions topped with gruyere cheese and something called ianca pane (no idea what this is, even google agrees). The salad has spinach tossed with the same yummy caramelized onions, pecans, and goat cheese. Both items are super delicious, everything tasted fresh and flavorful!
 |
| Beef Brisket Sandwich with Spinach & Wild Mushroom Salad |
In addition to the sandwich/salad pairing, we were served with a yummy double baked almond croissant and rosemary parmesan scone. The croissant had some sort of sweet custard filling, something I've never seen in an almond croissant, but it was so delicious. It's probably one of my favorite thing of the night! The scone cube is cheesy and buttery, flaky and rich, also a winner!
 |
| Double Baked Almond Croissant, Rosemary Parmesan Scone with Cortado Espresso |
I snuck a shot of the open-concept kitchen, which can be seen from the second level and through the large glasses on the ground level. Look at how organized and clean the kitchen is, I wish my kitchen looked like that!
 |
| Pallet Coffee Roasters |
Platform 7 Coffee:
The next place was an interesting contrast to Pallet Coffee Roasters. A super quaint, almost fairy-like cafe filled with beautiful ceiling lights, Platform 7 served up a selection of espressos made with Stumptown Hair Bender Espresso Beans. I tried the espresso, which was
super strong and bitter.
 |
| Platform 7 Coffee |
In addition to the coffees, we had a selection of cookies from various local bakeries: double chocolate salted espresso cookies (Gluten Free Epicurean), salted chocolate chip cookies (Gluten Free Epicurean), Platform 7 sugar cookies (East Village Bakery), and Honey-Lavender Cremes (Black Rook Bakehouse). All of them tasted quite delicious but I think my favorite was the Honey-Lavender Creme cookie. Sadly though, the place ran out of them very early on in the evening, which was super disappointing as we had to share one cookie among the four of us.
 |
| Americano and Espresso with cookie assortment. |
Renfrew Cafe:
The place we visited is a simple cafe that specializes in pies. We tried mini versions of their beef and kimchi pie and classic apple pie. The apple pie is warm and satisfying but the beef and kimchi pie is a bit underwhelming. I didn't taste much kimchi at all. Along with the pies, we tried some interesting cold-brew Oollo Tea made from Taiwanese whole tea leaves. The place was very friendly and the owners and their child welcomed us at the door with greeting signs too!
 |
| Renfrew Cafe |
 |
| Classic Apple Pie & Beef & Kimchi Pie with Oollo Tea |
My favorite of the three cafes is definitely Pallet Coffee Roasters, the place just had such an awesome atmosphere and everything we tasted were delicious!
Follow
Vancouver Foodster to find out about upcoming Tasting Plates events and all food-related things in Vancouver!
