Update: 29th May 2009 – this restaurant is closed.

Suanne’s favourite TV channel is FoodTV (or was it Food Network?). Among her favourite show is the Iron Chef America. Vancouverites are proud that one of the winners of the Iron Chef is one of our own — Rob Feenie. Rob Feenie beat no other than Masaharu Morimoto in the Battle Crab.

Feenie owns two award winning restaurants in Vancouver. The Lumiere and Feenie’s are located next to each other on Broadway in Vancouver. It would take a very special occasion to have a meal at the Lumiere — well, it’s because their signature menu, oh, costs only $160 … per person! The tips for a dinner for two is more than what I would normally spend for a nice meal for the whole family.

Cheapskate as we were, we went to the cheaper bistro next door to the Lumiere … Feenie’s. You gotta make reservation at Feenie’s because they are almost always packed. We booked a table for two through Feenie’s website. They called me the afternoon on that date to confirm our reservation.

We deliberately booked an early time ar 5:45pm before the dinner crowd starts coming in. By the time we got there, half the restaurant was already filled. We were shown the inside table, promptly seated, and given the Feenie’s menu.

We were served bread with soft butter.

For appetizer, we decided to share the Steamed Local Mussels. They are cooked with white wine, garlic, lemon grass, ginger, red and yellow peppers with garlic toast on the side. This dish was fabulous. The mussels were fresh and the soup base went perfectly with the toast. Great dish to start off the night.

This dish costs $12. We were so afraid that the waitress will come and collect the dish and we wanted to finish off every single drop of the soup. So, we deliberately left a few mussels on the plate while waiting for the waitress to bring more bread!

For myself, I ordered the Poisson du Jour which is the Wild Spring Salmon for today. The waitress recommended this and I did see a couple of table having it. The salmon were pan seared and very crusty on the outside with moist soft flesh inside — and simply flavoured with only salt and pepper. The salmon is served with mint risotto which gives a very unique flavour to the rice and blends so ever so nicely with bourbon sauce.

We read about Rob Feenie’s Shepherd’s Pie and how people love it. So, Suanne ordered this which is prepared with duck confit, mushroom duxelles, corn and truffle-scented mash potatoes. This is very rich. Certainly much much different from the normal Shepherd’s Pie we have tried elsewhere. Frankly, despite how nice this is, I felt this dish is over-rated. Dish costs $16.

For dessert, we shared the Daily Brulee which is an orange lacquered brulee made with a bit of coconut. The crust were brittle and orangey in taste. As any creme brulee, it is sweet. One thing we do notice is that Freenie’s has this certain uniform richness through out — he he he, know what I mean?

The total damage was $70 including tips and taxes. It was a good night out away from the boys. The service was good, the food was great. What is missing was Feenie was not in the restaurant that night — or else we would have asked for a photograph with him!