An Evening of Fine Dining at DB Bistro Moderne Vancouver

This past Sunday I had the opportunity to check out the new DB Bistro Moderne Restaurant. If the location looks familiar, that’s because this used to be Feenies Restaurant home of the famous Feenie Burger and Iron Chef Slayer, Rob Feenie. Rob had a falling out with his partners a little while ago and as a result, he was out and ended up slinging food at the Cactus Club. Although this may seem like a fall from the culinary heavens, it seems that he’s quite happy at Cactus Club but it’s gotta hurt to lose your signature restaurant, Lumiere.

At any rate, someone had to takeover and so they hired world famous Daniel Boulud to revamp Feenies and Lumiere. Although Lumiere is mostly unchanged, the restaurant formerly known as Feenies has been totally redesigned. There’s a patio for the Summer and they’ve really turned the place upscale to match Lumiere. The concept for food however will still be towards affordable fine dining like Rob originally envisioned for that space.

Here’s a look at one of their new menus that I had a chance to sample with John Chow and members of the SIP Social Club. You may want to bring a bib because this video is savoury…

The funny thing about this menu is that it was supposed to be offered to us upstairs at Lumiere. The club had booked Lumiere, but a last minute change sent us packing back downstairs to DB Bistro Moderne as John mentioned in the video.

The food was OK as some of the dishes were definitely not up to par according to the group and myself. We all felt that the Coq Au Vin was merely mediocre, but the Slow Baked Halibut was pretty awesome. No one had the vegetarian option that I’m aware of. Of course, that didn’t stop me from eating everything, but that’s just the way I am. I even had a chance to sample their version of a a high end “Jumbo Mixed Grill” which they called the Alsatian Choucroute Royale. It was definitely smaller than the Kam Do Mixed Grill, but everything is smaller than the Kam Do Mixed Grill.

When it came time for dessert, everyone had mixed feelings but no one raved about anything. I had the Alsatian Apple Tart, but that really didn’t do it for me. The Citrus Lime Floating Island was totally unfulfilling. I guess we really missed Rob Feenie’s famous Creme Brulee.

Overall though, if I saw this menu at Lumiere, I’d be pretty disappointed because I’d expect way better. But since we had it down at DB, I can’t be as harsh because it fit this restaurant. However, the $55 price tag per person was a little high for the quality of what we had. Keep tweaking Daniel and company.

Getting Connected With The BlinkMedia Crew

This past Thursday, members of the Dot Com Pho Crew went down to hang out with the BlinkMedia Works Crew, makers of the Canadian Tech TV show, GetConnected TV. In addition to the TV show, they also run business technology conferences, workshops and exclusive exhibitions. The event was a chance for the principals, AJ Vickery, Lindsay Smith & Mike Agerbo, to show off their studio and their operation.

They took care of all their guests with food, drinks and prizes throughout the night and the event was generally packed through the evening. Joining me was John Chow, Greg Morgan, Gary Ng and even our long lost friend, Ian Lee, who decided he owed me a ride downtown. We also bumped into Jeff Kee down there.

It looked like everyone was at the party except for missing in Deadmonton, Michael Kwan, and for some reason, even with the food and beautiful girls, Ed Lau was nowhere to be seen. We were concerned that he might have been kidnapped by Yakuza and tossed into an underground SUMO Wrestling ring. I think Leo Chiang was banging chicks or something.

They were also giving tours of their studio and doing interviews with guests onsite. Gary got interviewed by Mike Agerbo about his favourite topic: The iPhone of course! The interview went well and you can see it right here. 

Unfortunatley, John Chow tried to take over the show and that’s when things got really ugly. We’ve always known that John liked balls and jamming to Rick Astley, but things just got worse from there…

With enough drinks in him, he then started hitting on men with handlebar moustaches under the disco ball. In a sick twisted way, it was for a good cause because this brings attention to the Movember Fundraising Event for Prostate Cancer. More pictures from this event after the jump…

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Dot Com Pho – Lemon Glass…Grass…Edition

This past Saturday another Dot Com Pho took place. This week, we invaded the Lemon Grass Restaurant in Richmond, based on Greg Morgan’s recommendation. If you remember, Greg Morgan suggested that we check out a restaurant called Cuu Long in Vancouver, which we thought was mediocre at best. However, the “Big Cock Marketer” showed up this week so let’s see if it stacks up. Upon entering, I deja vu feeling and I was right: It used to be a greek restaurant. Apparently they moved up the street and the new owners turned it into a Vietnamese Restaurant, though I think Lemon Grass is more of a Thai ingredient.

In addition to Greg Morgan, we of course had John Chow, Ray, Wolfgang and picking up the video producing duties this week, Ed Lau. Also joining us this week were Rory Hansen, Heather, who owns the longest URL in existence, Crystal, and Timothy Sykes, author of An American Hedge Fund along with Adarsh who is, coincidentally, Greg’s neighbour.

This week’s episode of Dot Com Pho includes our commentary on how much the new MacBook sucks, our first Dot Com Booze of the week (thanks Buzz!), a rich Zinfandel from California called Cellar#8, our gadget of the week, which, unfortunately, we have no clue who gave it to us, and the joys of Motorboating in BC. Also featured this week is our continued Twitter shout outs. Enjoy!

I think that next week, it’s Dot Com Bachelor Party for iPhone Gary as he’s decided to throw the shackles on and pitch himself into the bottom less pit of marital bliss. But before that, he’s gonna go out with a bang complete with stripper poles, debauchery and paintball.