Dinner at Blue Water Cafe + Raw Bar

The Blue Water Cafe + Raw Bar is one of Vancouver best seafood restaurant. Housed in a handsome brick and beam heritage warehouse conversion, Blue Water Cafe is located in the heart of historic Yaletown, the city’s vibrant and hip neighborhood. Blue Water is part of the Top Table Restaurant Group, which also runs the award winning West and Araxi restaurants.

Blue Water offers what has to be the best sushi in the city. Cut master Yoshi Tabo takes his work very seriously. His salmon sashimi presentation look like an art display. Watching the man work is like watching poetry in motion. If you want to witness a master sushi chef at work, make sure you get a seat at the raw bar.

Selection of West Coast Oysters

Blue Water offers 18 different oysters on their menu. However, not all are always in stock. We told the server to surprise us. He came back with a dozen oysters from different parts of the west coast. The oysters were expertly prepared. Not a single grain of sand in any of them.

Organic Fraser Valley Greens

The opening salad was made from Okanagan cherries, barrel aged sheep cheese and honey crystals. Nice and refreshing. The cheese worked really well with the greens.

Albacore Tuna Tartar

Albacore Tuna Tartar made with baby mizuna, poached quail egg, ponzu sauce and sesame wonton crisps to give it an Asian influence. One of the best tuna tartar I’ve tasted.

Beef Sashimi

Beef Sashimi with garlic chips, chopped green onions, yu’kke sauce. If you like your beef rare, you’ll love this dish!

Sockeye Salmon Sashimi

The presentation of this dish blew me away. I didn’t want to eat it because it look so good. Once I took a bite, the taste blew me away even more than the presentation! This could very well be the best salmon sahimi in the city.

Beef Tenderloin

Beef Tenderloin with chanterelle mushrooms, green chard and macaroni gratin with blue cheese. This is actually my second choice for the main course. Blue Water Cafe is one of the few restaurant to serve Japenese “A5” Kuroge Wagyu beef. However, they were out so I got the tenderloin instead. It was very good and extremely tender but I really wanted to try the Wagyu. On the positive side, not having Wagyu saved me a lot of money on the dinner bill.

Vanilla Creme Brulee

Vanilla Creme Brulee with sweetened milk jelly and pomegranite granite. The brulee was a great way to end a fabulous meal. Adding the pomegranite granite was a very nice touch.

Dinner for two came to $220 with tax, tips and drinks. If the Wagyu beef was available the bill would have topped $500. Hopefully, the Wagyu will be available the next time I go. I will definitely dine at the Blue Water cafe again.

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