There seems to very mixed reviews on the Fairmont and Secret Garden in other threads and sites so we are going to take a chance on the Urban Tea Merchant and I will report back on how it was. Thanks for your feedback.

I am taking my 5 year old for high tea and 2 that have been recommended to me are Urban Tea Merchant and Secret Garden. The quality and taste of the food is more important to me than the ambience but it would be great to have both. I am fine with Downtown Vancouver or Westside. Thanks!

sorry they were prunes not dates....yes, that would have been a very different flavour:)

I have been soaking a mixture of fruit I.e dates, raisins for a year now in rum and apple brandy. I was going by a recipe to make the cake this holiday season and have lost it. I am looking for an authentic good recipe for this type of cake so that I can use up my liquored fruit. I have about 5 cups of it. Thanks!

I love The Flying Pig restaurant in yaletown and am looking for something like it for a small holiday dinner for 7 people. Because there are 7 of us and it is in December, I need to make reservations and they don't take them, even with a credit card. So I am looking for something in the same vain: cozy, convivial not romantic atmosphere with rich yummy French bistro fare in either Downtown or Westside. There are so many new places opening up, its hard to keep up with them so maybe something else like it has opened up and I just don't know about it?

I bought some of this in SF recently and just love it. Does anyone know if I can buy it here?

I just wanted to post a follow up on the places we tried:

We ended up at A16 instead of Chilango only because we were shopping/walking in the area and decided on a much earlier dinner than planned. Because we were there so early we got a table right away. I had a delicious vegetarian zucchini soup with a hit of spice(the most delicious thing I ate the entire trip), and a good margherita pizza that we shared. My husband said his gnocchi with guinea hen sugo was good not great.
Tartine for breakfast was not very good. Greasiest pastries, I have ever had. My husband who is partial to butter and oil thought it was overly greasy as well so I know it wasn't just me:) We had pain au chocolat, a morning bun, and a quiche.
Bistro Jeanty for lunch-always good solid French bistro fare. Both of us enjoyed the heirloom tomato salad and pomme frites with mustard. I had the puff pastry tomato soup and my husband had oeufs meurette (apologize if misspelled) which he really enjoyed.
Slanted Door-overrated. Fun, buzzy atmosphere but the food left a lot to be desired. I know no one actually recommended it here on my post but we thought we would try it based on other posts, and published reviews. We both found the food bland and oily. We had 2 kinds of spring rolls (veg for me and pork for hubby) and those were nice and refreshing but the tofu dish, and bok choy I ordered were unflavorful and oily and my husbands berkshire porkchops were just "ok."
Breakfast at Il Cane Rosso at the Farmers Market was awesome. We sat outside so we had a beautiful view and we both loved the olive oil fried egg sandwiches and the pain de mie with the homemade grape jam. I also really enjoyed their homemade hot sauce. We liked the breakfast so much that we opted to eat there again the next day instead of going to Canteen.
Lunch at Primavera was also excellent. I had the Chilaquiles, and my hubby had the brisket taquitos: fresh and delicious!
We also had a donut inside the ferry building that was filled with pistachio custard. Loved it.
Last dinner was at Cotogna which was hit and miss. I had a simple salad of greens w/red wine vinaigrette which was good, followed by gnocchetti w/nettles and chanterelle mushrooms-not so good. The sauce was way too salty and I usually add salt to my food so it was a lot. My husbands starter of little gems with creme fraiche, avocado, and bacon was overly dressed and his entree of lamb sausage was "ok/good" (I didn't try it as I am a pescatarian). Dessert was an absolutely delicious quince and pear bread pudding that we shared.
Thanks to all for your suggestions! Until next time....

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A16
2355 Chestnut St., San Francisco, CA 94123

Bistro Jeanty
6510 Washington Street, Yountville, CA 94599

Il Cane Rosso
1 Ferry Plaza, San Francisco, CA 94105

Chilango
235 Church St, San Francisco, CA 94114

Cotogna
490 Pacific Ave, San Francisco, CA 94133

Just wanted to report that the takeout was delicious. We reheated the pizza no problems. And the the spaghetti's held up well too. So much better than delivery... if only we could make the drive more often!

We would be stopping at Tartine for a pastry/croissant and/or quiche and coffee (not bread or sandwiches) quickly on our way to Napa so would it be better then to go to Bonjour Patisserie or Knead instead? Maybe these places will not have such a line up either?

Thanks Grayelf! I looked at the La Ciccia menu and it was a close call between it and Cotogna and Cotogna won out for me. We have changed our itinerary based on what everyone here has replied back with: Dinners: Chilango, Slanted Door, Cotogna. Lunches will still be Bistro Jeanty and Primavera at Farmers Market, and breakfast at Tartine (isn't this supposed to be the best patisserie in SF?) and Canteeen (only because I had to fit it in somewhere and didn't want to do dinner there as I am a picky eater and saw on the website that everyone gets the same dish:).

Thanks everyone!

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Slanted Door
Ferry Slip, San Francisco, CA 94111

La Ciccia
291 30th Street, San Francisco, CA 94131

Bistro Jeanty
6510 Washington Street, Yountville, CA 94599

Chilango
235 Church St, San Francisco, CA 94114

Cotogna
490 Pacific Ave, San Francisco, CA 94133

Thanks. Good idea to make salad on my own-I was just being lazy:). I will try it and see how it goes with my oven preheated for the pizzas and then I'll report back.

Thanks Robert. Would you opt for Cotogna or La Ciccia over Gary Danko?

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La Ciccia
291 30th Street, San Francisco, CA 94131

Gary Danko
800 N Point St, San Francisco, CA 94109

Cotogna
490 Pacific Ave, San Francisco, CA 94133

I have found that with many places where I like to dine in that the food is not very good when you take it out. I am hosting a family get together this weekend and didn't want to cook but felt like Marcello's. Has anyone ever had takeout from there before? We would be ordering pizzas, pastas, and salad. Thanks!

We will be in SF from a Thursday to Sunday and after researching previous posts have come up with an idea of where/what are lunches/dinners will be. I am expecting so my tastes as of late are towards comfort and no nonsense food. Not really looking for anything too complicated (i.e. no molecular gastronomy:). We like Italian (trattoria style food you would find in Rome and Campagnia-we especially like pasta), American, Thai, French (bistro/brasserie fare), and Mexican (we don't have good Mexican here in Van so don't really get to eat it very much).

So far this is what we have:
Dinner reservations at Gary Danko and the Slanted Door. We have 1-2 more dinner reservations to fill and are looking at either A16, Poesia's, Ideale, or Cotogna to fill one of them? Our reservations for Gary Danko are at 10 pm one of the nights so might need to change it to something else to have an earlier dinner unless you guys think it's a must try.

Lunch for one of the days will be in Napa at Bistro Jeanty only because I have eaten there before and loved it. Especially the tomato soup baked in pastry. Another will be at the Saturday farmers market. I had amazing fish tacos at a stand there last time we went but can't recall the name.

Breakfast will be a quick stop at Tartine Bakery on our way to Napa and an early Sunday breakfast at Canteen one of the days. Saturday we were planning on breakfast at the Farmers Market. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

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Slanted Door
Ferry Slip, San Francisco, CA 94111

Tartine Bakery
600 Guerrero St, San Francisco, CA 94110

A16
2355 Chestnut St., San Francisco, CA 94123

Ideale
1315 Grant Ave, San Francisco, CA 94133

Gary Danko
800 N Point St, San Francisco, CA 94109

Bistro Jeanty
6510 Washington Street, Yountville, CA 94599

Poesia
4072 18th Street, San Francisco, CA 94114

Cotogna
490 Pacific Ave, San Francisco, CA 94133

We have had a couple of large parties at Lupo, the largest being about 30 people. We had the entire upstairs beginning with a stand up cocktail hour with passed hors d'oeuvres and prosecco followed by a sit down dinner. It was very well organized and delicious. I'm not sure about 60 people but you could call and ask about the size of your party if this is a venue you would consider.

Thanks for letting me know.

I am taking a friend out for her birthday. I haven't been to Provence in a long time and was curious about the tomato festival menu. Has anyone tried it lately or the tomato menu? The other restaurant I am considering is Bao bei. When it first opened, I liked it and then when I went back not so much. Any new reviews? Thanks!

It looks like they are opening another location on Denman St...

A churro cart is a great idea...it would be easy too if they were set up like in Disneyland...probably no where near as good as the ones you had in Mexico...but they were still pretty delicious:).

Thank you for all the recs. The highlight of our weekend was lunch at Burrowing Owl. The freshness, quality, and flavour of all of our entrees was excellent. My intention was to visit Hester Creek and Gehringer but the rest of the group wanted to move along towards Kelowna so the majority won out. We visited Black Hills and SilverSage. I picked up a bottle of Nota Bene at the first but the tasting that was scheduled minutes after our arrival was with food pairings and no one else in our party was interested as we had just finished lunch. Silversage was generous with their tastings but was heavily overcrowded and the wine was simply awful.
Thanks QAW for the tickleberry's rec. We all loved our ice cream break. They sure had a lot of interesting flavours.
We didn't go out for dinner as everyone was quite tired and wanted to get an early start the next day. Saturday, we ate breakfast at the Farmers market in Kelowna. I don't remember the name of the crepe stand we went to but the woman making the crepes had a thick French accent and the stall was located in the back corner of the market. The buckwheat crepes were delicious. We had to skip our Quails Gate lunch reservation due to an untimely visit to the emergency room for one in the group but we did manage to eventually get to the winery itself for tasting and had an ok dinner at Mission Hill that evening. The view is spectacular and we were all glad we chose it for dinner based on how amazing the scenery was but no one was impressed with the food. The service however was exceptional and everything you expect from a finer dining establishment.
Our trip ended with breakfast at Bonfire in our hotel and was pretty good.
I wished we had eaten out more and visited more wineries but that is very hard when in a larger group as the majority often rules. But there is always next time:)

We have decided to stick with West Kelowna wineries for Saturday with dinner at Mission Hill. Do any of you know of an easy wine map on the internet for this area? We are going to a few wineries before lunch at Quails Gate at 1 pm, Mission Hill 1 hour tour at 330 and then more wineries until dinner at 7 pm. We are planning on Kalala, little straw, Beaumont, rollingdale, and Mt Boucherie.

I grew up there and still go there quite often to visit friends and family. New West is not a great place for food. The only place I think is ok/good is Venus Pizza/Rivers Reach Pub for the pizza only (not Neapolitan). And for delivery pizza Golphi's. Hopefully, the new Quay livens the dining scene up a bit....

Thanks QAW. Your itinerary will help us quite a bit. I am really looking fwd to the Oliver part of our trip now. For Sat evening dinner do you prefer Mission Hills or Summerhill?

I am thinking that for the Abbotsford breakfast I might just bring a long some homemade cinnamon buns that we can eat in the car. I am sure there will be a Starbucks around for coffee....

We have decided not to take a wine tour and just do it ourselves as one of our friends who doesn't drink would like to drive us. On the Friday (July 8), we will going through Abbotsford to Oliver and make a stop in Naramata on the way to West Kelowna. On Saturday, we will be hitting the farmers market in the morning and will go to the wineries in West Kelowna.

I am looking for:
-a good breakfast rec in Abbotsford
-lunch rec in/around Oliver (maybe at Burrowing Owl?)
-2 other wineries to visit besides Burrowing Owl that aren't too out of the way
-3 wineries to visit in Naramata
-dinner recs in Naramata and Kelowna as I am not sure which we will stop in for dinner yet

For Saturday, we will have breakfast at the farmers market and then do a tour of about 5-6 wineries in West Kelowna.

I am looking for:
-5-6 wineries in West Kelowna and best order to do them in (I know I am asking for a lot and thank you in advance:) that incorporates a lunch/visit at Quail's Gate.
-dinner rec in Kelowna or West Kelowna (we were thinking of eating at our resort restaurant either this evening or Friday-we are staying at the Cove)
-breakfast rec for Sun morning before our drive back....

Thanks!

I was looking for some good alcohol free wine and realize there is no such thing. However, I found the Navarro juice recommendation on a few sites including Chowhound and was wondering if anyone has seen it in Vancouver? If not and you have seen it across the border (but close e.g. Trader Joe's) that is ok too.

I did eat at West when he was at the helm but only twice. I remember it being good but I don't remember it being the wow experience I had on Saturday at Hawksworth. Thanks for the info on the kalamansi-I really had no idea what this was:)

Ganache in Yaletown is the only one I can think of but I don't know if it is as good as TH. I haven't been in a couple of years.

The starters are between 11-20 and the entrees 22-34. I didn't even look at the wine list because we were doing the pairings (it was 106 per person inc wine without tax, tip, bread for our tasting menus)

There were men wearing dress shirts with dress pants and dress shirt, blazer w/jeans so you don't have to bring a suit but you wouldn't be out of place if you did. There was a range of dress but for once I didn't see baseball caps or t-shirts with jeans:)...I. It is nice to be able to dress up once in a while and actually have a place to go without feeling overly dressed.

A friend I hadn't seen in a while met me at Hawksworth for dinner last night.The reason there are no photos or lengthy descriptions of the dishes is because we were too busy catching up. One thing we did discuss and agree on was that our food was excellent and the service top notch. She wanted to do the tasting menu with wine pairings. There was only one option so when I asked the server if they had a vegetarian tasting menu, he said that if I gave him a few moments that they would put one together for me. I told him I did eat seafood so the kitchen did a seafood one and paired wines according to my dishes. All of this was done on the spot which i found very impressive. To start, I had yellowfin tuna carpaccio which was served on a bed of avocado, cucumber, yuzu and puffed rice. The texture of the crunch with the creaminess was unreal and the dish itself was amazingly good. That was followed with a seared weathervane scallop surrounded by a creamy buttery sauce full of mushrooms. It was delicious. We then decided to order some bread to mop up the yummy sauces in our dishes because they were so good we didn't want to leave anything behind. Halibut was next and came with a mixture of artichokes, tomato, and basil. We both had this dish, except hers had chorizo. My last dish was pan seared trout that came with potato, green beans, and olives in a brown butter sauce: delicious as well. For dessert, we had something called kalamanzi creme. This was a deconstructed desert that had little meringues, a disk of what I gather is the kalamanzi creme?, almond paste, I think, a whipped mound of goodness that was lime flavoured, and crunchy little puffy things (I don't remember what it was-what kind of poster am?:). Anyhow the mixture of all of these textures and flavours combined was a flavour explosion. I am usually a chocolate tart/cake person whenever I pick my own dessert so was lucky that it was part of the tasting menu that I got to try this incredible dessert. All of the wine pairings went excellently with our entrees.

The food was interesting, the flavours, excellent, and the textures perfect. The actual restaurant was beautiful and mostly everyone was dressed up. It was very different from the usual casual dress seen in all of Vancouver's restaurants. I even saw a few women wearing floor length gowns! I enjoyed the opulence of it because the food and service was so spectacular and went quite well with the setting. My only complaints the entire evening would be that there is only one bathroom designated just for females so there was a line up both times I went. And the front desk/host staff were a little flustered when I first showed up which was not a big deal. I had a chance to have a drink in the lounge while I waited for my friend but felt a bit awkward not being seated right away because I was standing alone at a seatless hightop as all the bar seats and other seating areas were already occupied.

Overall, I would highly recommend this restaurant as the new finest of dining option for special occasions. Lumiere used to have this type of designation when Rob Feenie was at the helm but I definitely think the food is at a much higher level at Hawksworth than anything I ever had at Lumiere (and I did like Lumiere). My friend and I cannot wait until the next time we decide to splurge and catch up so that we can eat here again.

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Lumiere
2551 West Broadway, Vancouver, BC V6K2E9, CA

Feenies
2563W Broadway W, Vancouver, BC V6K2E9, CA

Great! I am glad you had a good experience. I love that chocolate raspberry tart. One of my dining companions also had the rabbit dish you enjoyed and she liked it as well.