The Most Expensive Wine Pairing Yet

Last night, Sarah and I went to Show Case restaurant for our fourth Dine Out Vancouver dinner. The Show Case restaurant is located inside the really swank Vancouver Marriott Pinnacle hotel. Most hotel restaurants are nothing more than an overpriced Denny’s but Show Case, along with three other hotel restaurants I’ve dined at, are exceptions to the rule. The restaurant served up a very nice west coast menu with the most expensive wine pairing yet - $30 on top of the $35 Dine Out price.

The Show Case restaurant is as impressive as the hotel that houses it. The ceiling looks to be 3 to 4 floors high. It creates an immense sense of space, yet it’s interment at the same time. We were seated next to a floor to ceiling window with a nice view of the Shaw Tower across the street.

Dungeness Crab and Corn Ravioli

This was Sarah’s starter - Dungeness crab and corn ravioli with smoked Chorizo butter sauce and caramelized Gala apples. This was a very interesting opening dish for a west coast restaurant. The ravioli was nice and firm and I can really taste the crab but not much else.

Butter Lettuce Wedge

Take a wedge of iceberg lettuce, add crumbled Montrachet goat cheese, pickled beets, a pork crackling vinaigrette and you’ll have the salad Show Case made for my opening course. It was paired with a glass of Brut sparking wine. The salad was refreshing and made for a good opener but the wine didn’t match very well with it.

Twice Beef

Take 2 types of beef, braised one and grilled the other, and you’ll have Twice Beef. My main course was served with roasted Cippolini onions, Tyroler bacon and potato hash. It is as west coast as you are going to get.

The taste and tenderness of the beef was exceptional. Sarah felt the potato hash was overdone and burnt. We both agreed the Cippolini onions really added a nice complimenting flavor to the beef. The dish was paired with a glass of Pinot Noir from Tinhorn Creek, a nice red that went quite well with the dish.

Seared Monkfish Medallions

As good as the beef was, the fish was better. This is the second time I preferred a fish dish to the meat dish. The Monkfish was served with lobster mashed potato, Mandarin infused Demi Glaze and an oven roasted tomato. The fish was every bit as good as the Pesce Del Giorno I had at La Terrazza.

Warm Churro Pillows

A dessert doesn’t get sweeter than this dish. There’s enough sugar, chocolate and espresso cream here to kill someone! It’s a good thing this was my dessert because its sweetness is well beyond anything Sarah can handle. The dessert was paired with a Late Harvest ice wine from Paradise Ranch - a sweet wine for a sweeter dessert.

Meyer Lemon Trio

Lemon Curd Tart, Glazed Lemon Chibouste and Lemon Ice Cream. Sarah loved this dessert. I felt it wasn’t sweet enough but that may have been because I just finished the sugar dusked Warm Churro Pillows.

A few things come to mind when reviewing Show Case. It is a nice restaurant that would make a good place to take a girl on a date (remember, you’re in a hotel with some really nice rooms). The food is very good and the service was excellent. The wine pairing was a rip-off. La Terrazza did a better wine pairing at less than half the price. The wines chosen were off for the first dish, good for the second and OK for the third. I expect much better for $30 for three glasses of wine. Overall, I give Show Case 3.5 out of five stars.