The Oakwood Canadian Bistro

On a spontaneous thursday evening, my lovely friend Megan and I decided to grab dinner together since I was close by her place studying. We always eat in the Kitsilano neighbourhood, so we decided to urbanspoon a place in Kits that we haven’t tried. We found this place called the Oakwood Canadian Bistro.

I’ve actually heard about the Oakwood before from some other friends, but have never bothered to try it. I thought that it was great that the food was all made from fresh, local products. Anything from their “bread to the pastas, butchery to the sauces”, they are all locally sourced. Not to mention their service was great as well. Somebody was always ready to check on us and made sure we had everything we needed.

We decided to order 3 dishes to share so we could try a few items. The first dish we got was the rabbit rillette, truffle butter, shaved foie gras, caraway epi bread, and pickled veg. Interestingly, the dish was served in the jar.

Our server explained to us that this dish is placed in layers. The rabbit rillette sat at the bottom, the truffle butter in the middle, and the shaved foie gras on the top. We ripped the bread into pieces, and used the dish as a spread. Oh. My. Word. This was AMAZING. And although it looks like a small dish, it was actually pretty filling because of the bread and the rich flavours.

The next dish we ordered was the seared scallops, truffle sabayon (cooked and whipped yolks with seasoning), dijon spaetzle (small dumplings similar to pasta), bacon crumble, and black kale powder. Another perfect dish; Packed with creamy, delicious flavour and perfectly pan-fried scallops. I adore scallops so this was definitely right up my alley. Also usually I can’t eat too much truffle because of the intense richness, but with both this dish and the first one, they used just the right amount of truffle so that it wasn’t too overwhelming.

The last dish we ordered was the mussels in tomato coconut broth, house baguette and cilantro. We didn’t think that the dishes (that looked so small) would be so filling, so we got it with fries too.

Honestly, we could’ve gone without this dish and we would’ve left satisfied and full, but of course we under estimated these dishes, and ended up not being able to finish this dish. We did manage to put away quite a bit of it though. Enough for me to tell you that it was also absolutely amazing. The coconut tomato sauce was amazingly delicious, tasting a little bit like thai curry. Tasted amazing with the fries and bread as well.

Overall, I was extremely happy with my experience at the Oakwood. The food was good, the restaurant was beautifully decorated, and the service was good. It is definitely on the pricier side, but I think it was perfectly worth it. Between the two of us, the bill came out to around 60 dollars. I will leave the menu here so you can check out their other dishes, along with the prices.

I think I would give this place a high 9/10. If you’re ever to go for a little bit of a fancier meal, definitely go and check it out.

The Oakwood is located at 2741 West Fourth Avenue

 Their phone number is 604 558 1965

and their hours of operation are : 

Dinner: 5pm – Late (closed Mondays) – reservations excepted

Late Night Menu – 10:30 – Close
 
Brunch: 10:00am – 2:45 Saturday & Sundays – no reservations

Thanks for reading,

More soon.