A second night in the big city, and after a day of running around to places like Gourmet Warehouse to stock up on Scharffenberger chocolate and other sundries, and checking out the local gluten-free baking scene, I for one, was ready for some dinner and a couple of cocktails.
When over in Vancouver, I like to opt for things you can’t get as readily in Victoria. Indian food being one, and awesome sushi being another. Since we anticipated heading downtown for apres-dinner cocktails, we opted to go to Sushi Aoki on Broadway — a budget friendly sushi restaurant with an amazing array of Japanese food, plus, a sushi chef who likes to have fun with his food, and wears an assortment of masks. For our dinner, he had donned a Pikachu mask! The fish is all first rate — sashimi that melts in your mouth, and lots of very well executed traditional sushi combinations, plus some very unusual ones such as the Pink Godzilla Roll :/
After missing the chance to get to The Refinery the previous night, I had been exchanging tweets through the late afternoon with Lauren Mote (@PoiveMedia) from The Refinery about the possibility of getting in before having to go back to Victoria. With Christmas nearing, there are lots of private parties in many of the downtown bars and restaurants, and that night, there was a private party at The Refinery that was booked for dinner through to closing. Feeling foiled again we had almost resigned ourselves to going down to the Pourhouse for a second night, when we got a tweet from Lauren saying she would make it work somehow!
So we headed back, and upstairs. Lauren found us a corner by the bar to sit at, made us a couple of cocktails featuring a couple of her House-made bitters, and generally made us feel welcome.
The second cocktail of the evening was a take on Whisky Sour, with Makers Mark Bourbon, lemon and simple syrup, some of the Autumn House Bitters, and a float of Chilean Pinot on top (spicy and dry!). I wouldnt have thought to put the float on top, but it all worked great together, pulling the spicy notes out of the bitters, and cutting through the sweet bourbon.
As we talked, Lauren explained that they are always doing something new with the bitters and infusions, so each visit back to the Refinery will bring something new in terms of taste profiles. Its exciting to see all the works in progress in the nooks in the walls, and am very curious now to see what the next visit might have in store!
Thanks again, to Lauren for hearing my disaapointed tweet from our Friday night attempt to come visit, and going above and beyond to make it work before I had to head back to Victoria!