DINNER WITH… pairs interesting Vancouverites with top notch restaurants. We want to showcase the minds and menus of some of our favourite people and establishments.   We’ll pick their brains, while they devour their dinner, and hopefully YOU will come away inspired, enlightened and hungry…

You may remember Bob posting the first “Dinner With…” back in March, well I was hungry and wanted to meet cool people, so I’ve taken over! My “Dinner With…” posts will run every other Thursday, starting with:

DINNER WITH… DESTIN HAYNES!

Destin is, amongst many things, our Events Editor. Outside of VIA life she is the Community Manager at Village & Co and an awesome person.

I took her to Cru, one of my favourite restaurants, because she mentioned she enjoys small plates and boy we were in for quite a treat. Given the option of choosing the food for ourselves or having the amazing owner, Mark Taylor, pick food for us, we went with the latter…

First up, aside from the wine of course, was Cru’s take on Bruschetta: creamy edamame on grilled foccacia with oven-dried tomatoes and warm pecorino. So. Good.

We were then brought a Caramelized Onion Tart, with nicoise olives in phyllo crust, micro greens, sour cream drizzle. Melt-in-your-mouth worthy.

While we waited for the next course our conversations were all over the map…in fact, getting to know Destin was kind of eerie. Sitting across from me was a curly haired girl that loves social media, events, music, food, wine, art…she was basically a blonde me (except Destin doesn’t like goat cheese, …what?). Naturally these similarities led us to scheming and plotting and hopefully you’ll one day soon see the fruits of this dinner on Vancouver Is Awesome.

One of my favourite dishes that Cru makes is the Miso marinated BC Sablefish, with creamed cauliflower and sautéed kale.

While we graciously devoured this dish, our taste-buds influenced our discussion, as we realized “Dinner With…” should have some standard questions for all of the interviewees. Destin, being a writer, thought the “If you could have dinner with one person…” question might be too cliche, but I felt that with a whole dinner to decide, and the blogs being CALLED “Dinner With…” it was perfect.

So Destin, if you could have dinner with one person…?

Look, look how pretty that is…
Oh, sorry…Sautéed Mushrooms on toasted brioche, 3 year-old white cheddar, balsamic syrup can be a little distracting.

Destin mused about whom to dine with given the chance…Bukowski maybe if she had to pick a writer…Kris Kristofferson for a musician, but the person she finally settled on won my heart tenfold: Tina Fey.

I approve.

This, my friends is Cru’s famous (and I should know) Duck Confit with bacon vinaigrette, spätzle goat cheese hash. You can find it on Vancouver Magazine’s 101 Things To Eat Before You Die, and we found it in our bellies.

Of course we managed to leave room for dessert (Lemon Meringue with Almond Genoise and a white chocolate “brittle”) AND come up with two more questions to ask everyone for future posts.
1) Favourite Vancouver Restaurants 2) Favourite Foods.

Destin’s answers:
1) Favourite Vancouver Restaurants: “Dirty diners, the cheaper the better, the dirtier the better. Which is a polar opposite to…”

2) Favourite Foods: Small Plates, Izakaya (stemming from her time living in Japan)(yes, Japan!), eating off other people’s plates and Charcuterie and a wine pairing.

Mine kind of gal.

Thanks SO much to Cru for a delightful meal, we had a great time and recommend you check them out the next time you need an excellent meal.
Stay tuned for the next installment in our Dinner with… series set at another one of Vancouver’s best restaurants with another one of Vancouver’s best humans.