Tasting Journey #1 - Campagnolo

October 13, 2011 - 18:00

http://www.campagnolorestaurant.ca/

I've been looking forward to this day ever since I wrote this down as one of my 1-year personal goal.
To help achieve this goal, Zofia and I decided to start a restaurant club at work where we would meet every 3 weeks or so and try out new restaurants located in Vancouver.

Campagnolo is located near the train station (Main/Terminal) near a bunch of areas that are currently under construction. I've driven past that area a million times, but I don't think you would notice the restaurant unless you were on foot.
As soon as I walked in, I was surprised by how spacious the restaurant is.  The layout of the restaurant is quite interesting; The kitchen is located right in the centre of the restaurant, with big open spaces for tables on either ends of the restaurant.

For appetizers, we ordered Crispy Ceci (left) & Crostini (right). Crispy Ceci is by far, the best dish for the entire night. It is made of fried chick peas tossed with spinach, chili and some type of citrus sauce.  The chick peas were crispy and was really really good!  Crostini is chicken liver pate. Look at the size of the pate jar! We had to apply a very generous amount of chicken liver per bread, to even use up half of what's provided...and that threw the balance of the cripy bread-pate ratio off....

Rigatoni is what I had tonight.  This is a dish made of braised rabbit ragu mixed with pork, corn, and pasta, all topped off with a creamy sauce.
This is my first time trying rabbit meat. I was a bit hesitant at first, as rabbits are just too cute to be considered a food. Then I thought to myself, have I lost my adventurous spirit? Int he past, I did not think twice to try raw horse, whale or even bat! why am I now hesitant to try rabbit? It is a delicacy afterall isn't it? Anyways, so I tried it. Had I not known that it was rabbit, I would've guessed that the meat is a piece of very well salted pork! Though tastey, I'm still not a big fan of eating cuddly, furry friends, so you probably wouldn't see me splurge over rabbit meat anytime soon...

Lasagna was what Zofia had ordered tonight. It was rich in flavour, extremely tasty, but a bit too salty to my liking. At the end of the meal, Zofia provided the feedback to the waitress (not as a complaint, but as a feedback with good intention since we both felt it was too salty). The chief actually gave her a 40% discount on the dish! Pretty good service, I'd say!

Romano Pizza. I didn't try it, but it looked delicious. Minimal cheese as topping, the pizza had bright red tomato sauce, and lots of juicy looking olives. Portions are huge as well. It's interesting that they cut the pizza in 4's, and not in 8's. It was funny watching Michelle stuff such a huge slice in her mouth.
As we stood up to leave, I did notice that many of the other guests all ordered pizza. Definitely something I'd like to try next time if I do go back.

All in all, I really enjoyed dinner tonight. I liked how we got the chance to enjoy food and the opportunity to just converse casually. It's nice not to have to talk about work 24/7. I'm really looking forward to our next tastey journey!