The Restaurant

Ok here we are at the first rewind post.

A while ago I learned about a restaurant in Whistler called Araxi. It is rather high end but has the distinction of being featured on Hells Kitchen.

http://www.araxi.com/hellskitchen.html

This coupled with the fun of trying a new restaurant was a perfect opportunity for a Valentines dinner! I did in fact manage a reservation for the 14th, awesome! Unfortunately I was to learn not soon after making the reservation that I was fated to go alone; not awesome. The fact that it just happened to be during the Olympics meant that canceling a reservation held a fairly steep monetary penalty, hmm what to do. I was able to move the reservation to another day later in the month, I was still going to be able to go!

Tisha who also worked on the med spec crew with me agreed to come with which was very sweet of her. I was thrilled I didn't have to spend another dinner alone at a restaurant. It really does suck! Now on to the fun stuff!

The decor was very nice and even though it was busy we didn't need to raise our voices to talk. Sitting in the middle of the room still gave us an impression of having a private conversation which was nice. The door staff were of course well dressed, smiling and beautiful. The wait staff were extremely polite and well versed in the restaurants offerings. We decided on trying a local wine found in the Okanagan Valley. All of the wine was uncorked and put into nice carafes. One we saw was about 3 feet in length! Not always functional but looked really cool. We decided to order direct from the regular menu but they did have a tasting menu as well which looked very interesting!

Bread was served with a chopped olive mixture on olive oil. Tasty but if you don't like olives it would have been salty. We started with the Lobster Salad: crisp crab springroll with avocado and apple toasted couscous, mint and celery leaf salad. We have pictures too!

Next was our main courses. Tisha opted for the Grilled Red Tuna: lemon and lime vinaigrette with toasted quinoa and shaved mushrooms Pemberton jade radish, dried tomatoes with salsify. Tisha and I agree it was probably the best tuna we had ever tasted. It really was amazing!

I went with the Local Wild + Cultivated Mushroom Risotto: toasted sage, white wine and truffle essence parmigiano-reggiano and roasted BC hazelnuts. I also added one gram of black truffles. Yes they sell them by the gram. There are only a few things in the world I have heard of sold by the gram and most illegal. Forget all that! Go get a truffle pig and make some real money haha! I am biased because I love risotto but this was superb!

Then came dessert. Valrhona Chocolate Fondant: chocolate dentelle and dulce de leche milk chocolate earl grey tea ice cream. Best ice cream ever! The molten lava part of the chocolate cake was done perfectly! A wonderful way to finish off the meal.

After we were finished we decided to head to the GLC again for some drinks. Well we went through a LOT of beer and some crazy fool actually ordered us a shot as well. We even got our server into the pictures. Sleep would have to wait! On our way home we decided to take in the empty bobsled for some pictures. Tisha managed to get all wet, so of course I have to tease her about it. Here is a picture of her wet butt LOL!