Giovane
1038 Canada Place
Vancouver, BC

For some reason, embedded in my head is that concept that most hotel restaurants are… Well, disappointed. Of course, given that I travel on a budget, the hotels I end up staying aren’t necessarily a five star hotel; instead, they are usually your regular hotel chains, i.e., Hilton, Marriott, Sheraton, et al. And, then again, even if they have fancy locations, I seldom end up staying in those. After all, why should I? If travelling on business, it is my customer’s money, not to mention I spend the whole day at the customer’s site; if it is leisure, chances are I am only there to sleep and some basic necessities.

But, even when I stay in the “fancier” locations of those hotel chains, more often than not, the food has been average at best. But, then again, Fairmont is a luxury hotel chain so comparing them to the other chains might be akin to comparing apples to oranges. With that in mind, I went to Giovane, the “cafeteria” located in the recently opened Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel and little sibling to Oru, the main restaurant in the hotel. Hey, I wasn’t in mood to fork big bucks to Oru, given the mixed feedback!

From what I have seen, Giovane can be “broken” down into three distinct sections: a coffee shop, a pastry/bakery shop and a deli. Now, deli might be stretching that definition, given they have salad, soups, pizza and sandwiches. Now, I will focus a little bit in the deli part given I am not much of a coffee drinker and I am not crazy about sweets. Having said that…

Instead, I am a tea drinker. Here, a cup of, you can guess it!, Earl Grey. I will have to say their leaves they use are actually quite good. A nice hint of bergamot oil yet not to “dry” to the taste. It was quite enjoyable. The only thing that puzzles me is the leaf strainer. It looks “barbaric”… I mean, how about getting me a small teapot? Hmmmmmm…. OK, being nitpicky here!

For this visit, I was there for breakfast and I ended up ordering their Italian Sausage Strata – onion, sausage, tomato, sweet pepper, parmigiano, croutons. The reason I went for this was that their breakfast sandwich didn’t look too exciting. Why? I had that odd feeling I would have gotten better value if I had gone to Timmie’s for the breakfast sandwich! And, while there was also their “Giovane” Breakfast – Soft poached eggs, asparagus, prosciutto, piave vecchio, toasted croutons, I had some wacky feelings about it and ended up ordering the strata instead.

To me, strata is a savoury version of a bread pudding but this one felt more on the lines of a quiche – or, to be more technically correct given this is “Italian”, a frittata. The reason is that I didn’t feel anything that had a bread texture. But, putting that aside, I didn’t particularly liked the combination of flavours. In a way, they didn’t really add up; instead, it felt like each component was fighting for supremacy over the other. Furthermore, that eggplant layer created a “divide” between the top and bottom layer: the top having the vegetables and the bottom having the sausage. The crouton, was actually quite interesting but, hey, I was there for the quiche, I mean, frittata… I mean, strata…

To go along, I also ordered a side salad, here, a tomato and bocconcini salad. I put it in that order because over half of the “salad” was bocconcini! Now, the day I went (over a month ago), tomato wasn’t really in “season” yet so they weren’t that sweet. Given the case, I won’t be too harsh on them. The one part that was odd was the basil. Notice it is staring to get brown? Well, it seems they had it prepared ahead of time and had the basil tossed by then. Probably I am being too demanding? :S

At this point, I will have to say I wasn’t particularly impressed by their breakfast options. But, at the same time, people was telling me that wasn’t necessarily their forte. OK, I thought. Let’s give them another chance. So, on another day, I was there again and debating what to order: either pizza or sandwich (and salad/soup).

Behold, their green onion, chorizo and corn soup with a porchetta sandwich – Braised pork, shaved fennel, garlic aioli, fontina. The reason I chose soup and sandwich over the pizza was because the pizza was prepared and left on top of a counter which would be reheated when order. I guess that’s what you get for $9… However, that wasn’t enough reason; instead, it was rather because they didn’t really look that good which lead me to go for the sandwich instead. Granted, the sandwiches are also in a cool display case rather than outside but I believe sandwiches can last longer than pizza under this condition…

Despite I shouldn’t, I was actually quite surprised by the soup! Well, corn is in season, right? Here, the corn wasn’t completely creamed, instead, you could still feel some texture of the corn kernels. It was sweet but not excessively so. That sweetness was “cut” by some spiciness from the chorizo. A really good combination. The green onion was somewhat odd, though. Given it was sweet and a bit spicy, the “freshness” of the green onion didn’t work that well. Fortunately, you could easily scoop it out.

Out of all sandwiches, I chose to go for porchetta. As a reminder, one of the best porchetta sandwiches I have ever had is from Salumi in Seattle (though the other sandwiches were just average…), not to mention I believe I can make a good enough oven version of a pulled pork. So, in a way, high expectations. In this case… It disappointed. For one, I thought the amount of pork was a let down. Furthermore, there wasn’t much of pork taste and the cheese, while there, didn’t help much in terms of flavour. The saving grace was the bread, which was quite good, as it was crispy but, c’mon, I am not here for the bread; I am here for the pork!!!

So, after having giving Giovane two chances, I believe there are better options. In fact, recently I went to Creme de la Crumb, a just opened pastry shop, and their similarly set up sandwich was better than this. However, I am also sure people will be saying something about pastry/bakery and coffee. If that’s what you want, by all means, go ahead. Since I am not much of a coffee drinker nor a sweets person, I had to go for the remaining option. In this case, their “deli” didn’t really work for me. And, with that, my thoughts of hotel restaurant/food. (I guess I have to go to hotels in Asia before this opinion change…)

Oh, well, here I go again… For work reasons, I went to Merrillville, Indiana. (Of course, I can’t disclose who/what). Just as with my last trip to Baltimore, here are my breakfasts…

Since the departure time of my flight was around 10:50 a.m., I arrived at the airport just before 9:00 a.m., just in time to grab something from Tim Horton’s, their Breakfast Sandwich with Sausage (Egg, cheese, sausage in a “homestly biscuit”).

I must say I am a fan of this sandwich. Sure, it might not be the best/healthiest option available but, hey, it tastes good!

Unfortunately, my flight got delayed… twice (bumped to noon, then to 1:00 p.m.) and finally cancelled. “Fortunately”, I was re-scheduled for a later flight (~2:10 p.m.)…

In the meantime, while waiting for the re-scheduled flight, I got hungry and went *again* to Tim Horton’s, this time for a bagel with (strawberry) cream cheese.

It was actually better than expected: crunchy in the outside and “chewy” in the inside. And, oh, the cream cheese gave it some soft texture to balance it. Now, whether the fact I was hungry might have made me like it a bit more than what I should!

Now, while in Merrillville, I stayed in a Marriott. Good thing about the Marriott is that they provide a free continental breakfast. This certainly helps when you leave really early and don’t have the time to stop at any restaurant to grab something to eat. Whether how good or bad is the food… Well, they have the usual array of donuts, cereals, bread/muffins/bagels, porridge, yoghurt and juices. In my case, this is what I had (in almost all the days I was there):

Some juice, a breakfast sandwich and the porridge. On other days I also had yoghurt and some fruit but that was about it.

The best description of this sandwich would be a packaged/frozen version of an Egg McMuffin. However, while I can tolerate the Egg McMuffin, this version was crap. As per instructions, I microwaved it for a minute and let it cool lightly before opening it. The result was a rubbery thing called “egg”, some chewy bacon and a dry muffin. On the other hand, the porridge was quite good. Unlike the one I had at Au Bon Pain in Baltimore, this reminded me partially of congee in the sense it was savour. However, unlike congee, it was creamy rather than watery. Odd combination if you ask me but good for breakfast.

Overall, despite it could have been better, it is not something I can complain about. After all, it was “free” and that’s not something you can easily beat.