I know I speak highly of Mosaic all the time, but they are one of my favourite restaurants in Vancouver. Recently, I was invited by Mosaic to try the new Spring menu. What I love about Mosaic is that they use local and in season items and incorporate them into not only their Fresh sheet menu, but their regular menu as well.
To start off we had the BC Spot Prawn salad: Foraged Miners lettuce, wild watercress, mixed radish, nasturtium and green garlic. What I enjoy most in dining out is definitely learning about different ingredients I’ve never seen or tasted before. This salad was good, while it didn’t have too big of a flavour profile to it – it was clean, crisp and a perfect way to start your meal.
Our next appetizer was the Roberts Creek Dungeness Crab Cakes from Barnston Island and served with baby dandelion greens, avocado, Okanagan apple and fennel pollen. I liked this appetizer the best, it had a nice snap to the taste, clean and slightly tart from the apple.
One of my favourite dishes was definitely the Squid Ink Bucatini. I mean, just look at it! It’s so dramatic looking. This dish has razor clam, charred octopus, pea, nduja and fiddlehead fern. The Nduja is a spicy pork spread hailing from Italy (similar to chorizo) and is sprinkled throughout the pasta. This might be more spicy for the average person, but it was fine for my tastes. This was definitely my favourite dish to photograph.
The next dish is the Haida Gwaii Weathervane Scallops, served with pickled garlic scrape, salsify and preserved meyer lemon. It hard to tell in this photo, but they were absolutely massive – almost as large as the palm of my hand! They were perfectly cooked, still quite meaty and tender in the middle. The ramps really complimented the flavour – I must try cooking with ramps at home soon!
The Queen Charlotte Sablefish is served fingerling potato and ramps. I absolutely love how tender the sablefish is – it’s meaty, tender and extremely juicy. Brian was not a fan of the ramps, but I really liked it – I’m not really sure how to describe the way it tastes but the way it hits your tongue is similar to that of horseradish or wasabi (but not in a very harsh way).
The Peace Country Lamb is served with fava bean, mint, stinging nettle gnocchi and pea shoots. The lamb at Mosaic is quite nice and is one of my favourite places to enjoy it in the city.
Our dessert was a New York cheesecake made with marscapone and a chocolate crumble with rhubarb and strawberries. It was a great dessert and was the perfect amount.
The second dessert is a lemon meringue pie, although it is not a pie. It’s gluten-free – the lemon meringue was a mousse sitting atop of gluten-free crunch. It served with blueberry compote and freshly made toasted marshmallows. I’m not a big fan of lemon meringue, but Brian loved this dish.
Although summer is just around the corner, you still have time to check out the Spring menu at Mosaic. I really love the flavours and ingredients that are incorporated within all the dishes made at the restaurant.
Disclaimer: Please note that I was invited by Mosaic to try their new Spring Menu and my meal was paid for. All opinions are my own.
