Stainsby in Exile; Gill On Suds, Levykh At Bistro 101

To mark Craft Beer Week Alexandra Gill creates a couple of brewery tours around East Van as nowadays you can "barely shake a reusable glass growler without stumbling into a tasting room." Along the way Gill recommends Brassneck: "Go now before the eccentric dill-and-lemon-drop-flavoured Shogun runs out." A "...peppery saison named after cyclist Eddy Merckx" draws approval at 33 Acres as does Bomber's "tiny, dark tasting bar, which overlooks the beer tanks, (and) usually has a lineup out the door on weekends."

Over at the Westender, Anya Levykh heads down to PICA's student-run Bistro 101 and awards it "straight As" for its "rotating menu of elegant offerings, all prepared and served by the school's advanced students." Glowing praise comes thick and fast with Levykh swooning, "the food is so good I would pay à la carte at market price for much of it."

Mia Stainsby ducks into the new Exile Bistro off Davie Street in the West End declaring "(it) isn't a one-menu fits all sort of restaurant but it should most certainly pique the interest of the healthy-eating cognoscenti." The menu which has "an emphasis on locally foraged wild, native ingredients" wins praise for its "towering, fluffed salad of foraged and cultivated greens and coconut chips... health in a bowl." A cast iron broth pot with game meat, roots and shoots was made "very awkward to eat by its interactive presentation. The fondue pot, with its small opening made it difficult to cook and retrieve the ingredients which included dramatic candy cane beet slices." Scoring 3.5 overall Stainsby approves, "Kudos, I say, to Exile for taking healthy eating to quite another level and into the wild."
· Student-Run Bistro 101 Gets Top Marks [WE]
· Exile Bistro Emphasizes Locally Foraged Ingredients [VanSun]
· Two Self-Guided Walking Tours to Soak Up the Suds Scene [G&M]
· All Previous Week in Reviews [EVAN]