Restaurant Review: Burgoo
My mother-in-law was in town last night, so Mel and her mom decided try another Dine Out menu before they headed to a hockey game. Despite feeling pretty awful – having taken a sick day from work – I decided to come along.We settled on Burgoo, a local place with a reputation for comfort food, food of the type that would keep Mel and her mom warm at the hockey game and keep me full while I stayed home on the couch.
For starters, Mel and I shared a Stout and Cheddar Fondue (“Guinness stout and sharp white Cheddar served with red grapes, cut apple, grape tomatoes and crusty bread”). I’m not usually a fondue fan, but I really enjoyed this dish. Something about the creaminess of the stout and the sharpness of the cheddar really made this more palatable to me than fondue’s usual white wine and gruyere/emmental pairing, and there was almost a perfect number of bite-sized pieces of fruit and bread. There was just enough fondue mixture left over to fill a spoon, and I certainly didn’t let it go to waste.
Whenever I see butter chicken on a menu I have to try it, and Burgoo was no exception. Described as “a savoury butter cream curry with tomato, potato, spinach and zucchini, served over brown basmati rice”, this dish placed more emphasis on the tomato and less on the butter than I usually expect with butter chicken. In this case it worked out well – the sauce was just rich enough without being too heavy. The zucchini and spinach were well cooked and the rice served its purpose in grounding the dish. Overall the dish was an above-average effort – more complex and flavourful than a version you’d find in a place like White Spot, but not as good as an authentic butter curry from one of Vancouver’s great Indian restaurants.
For dessert I went for the Baby Bonanza Sundae, which came with “fresh cut banana, pure vanilla ice cream, chocolate syrup and toasted hazelnuts”. The ice cream was tasty and the banana was fresh and firm, but the hazelnuts were crushed up a little too much for my liking. It wasn’t a very complex dish but it served as an adequate dessert – you can rarely go wrong with ice cream.
The restaurant itself had the coziness and charm that I had expected from Burgoo’s reputation, with sturdy wooden tables, chairs, and details, and a roaring fire illuminating the otherwise dimly-lit room. The rustic feel was enhanced my choice of beverage, a tasty glass of Alpenglow semi-sweet mead from Hornby Island’s Middle Mountain Mead. Like Baru Latino, I plan on going back to one of Burgoo’s three locations, both to try out their regular menu and to have another glass of mead (which happens to be available in my favourite liquor store).
