Dine Out Vancouver 2014!

It's that time of year again! Time for Dine out Vancouver, where the local restaurants in town have three course set menu's for either $18, $28, & $38. A lot of high end restaurants that participate in Dine Out, and it allows you to enjoy some higher end fair for a very reasonable price.

I've had varying levels of success with Dine Out, I find a lot of restaurants do the bare minimum by offering a very basic menu consisting of a basic meat dish, a basic fish dish, and a vegetarian option. But I digress, all restaurants do have very high costs to survive so I'm sure I'm talking out of my ass, anyways...

Onto Chicha restaurant!

While we were perusing the Dine Out website we noticed Chicha, a local Peruvian restaurant, on the menu they had a grand total of three appies, 11 main items (choice of two each) and two desserts (no Guinea pig though, boo!). We quickly made a reservation and off we went!

My pictures are absolute rubbish this time (didn't use flash, didn't want to disturb other diners).

First the Appy's
I had the Seafood chowder and Debbie had the Quinoa salad

The chowder was creamy, and full of fresh fish with a nice spicy after finish, a great start!
Debbie's Quinoa salad was astounding! It's a simple Mango & Quinoa salad with a Jalapeno pepper sauce two ways. This is a rare treat indeed, a really tasty salad!

The Mains

Papas Rellenos (Potato Croquettes) stuffed with ground beef & and pickled onion salad

Tasty and simple, and very filling. Reminded me of a Empanada but instead of pastry it is wrapped in whipped potato.

Veraduras Causa, Beetroot whipped potato with Lima Bean puree and chili yam chips

Carb city! The only photo taken with a flash. The whipped potato was smooth and very sweet, served cool. Debbie enjoyed this, but it's pretty small and is more an appetizer size.

Veraduras Novoandinas, Quinoa, cauliflower, spinach, zucchini, and corn fritters with passion fruit sauce

Tiny, bland and mushy. All those ingredients and this is what you get!? A crispy on the outside and mushy tasteless inside? Serious miss. The sauce is good though.

Lomo Saltado, Flat iron steak, kennebec fries, red onion, peppers, tomato wok fried with soy sauce, garlic, and aji amarillo chili

Translated. A meat Poutine with no cheese that's how I can best describe it. Tasty but nothing particularily special. Very large and filling, but I wonder what it would be like with some cheese!

Dessert

Spiced Aji Chili Dark Chocolate Bread Pudding with Peruvian dulce de leche, and pisco raspberry sauce

I love bread pudding, and this was really nice. Very chocolaty with a nice spicy aftertasty. Dulce de leche is amazing!

Lucuma, white chocolate, and lime frozen torte with passion fruit and raspberry sauce

Tart, tart, tart! So unbelievably tart! The crust is nice, but wow this was really sour and tart. Not for us.

After reading the review you must figure that we weren't happy with the restaurant, but on the contrary, the individual parts were greater than the sum! We can't wait to go back to this restaurant! The salad was amazing and some of the other non Dineout menu items sound great. Just avoid the Quinoa fritter and get the Quinoa salad!

I like the Vegetarian dish... Who'd a funk it?