Priscilla Liang

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Received an email from them this morning saying that the restaurant is now closed for good, claiming that they are “unable to secure a new lease”.  It’s a sad news, but unfortunately I’m not surprised. They do have good food, but too bad, I don’t think they know how to run a restaurant properly. I’ve heard the same thing from other fellow foodies way too many times – service doesn’t meet the standards and food always take forever to arrive. Another classic example where having good food doesn’t guarantee the restaurant will do well – you gotta have the whole package. Good luck to all the staffs!

People who purchased their deal from Groupons should get their refunds from Groupons.  Yuck!

Priss @ Jan 5th, 2011

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Went on a date with Beau and we picked the Corner Suite Bistro de Luxe located on 850 Thurlow Street, Vancouver, BC.  Check out the food first and I’ll tell ya what I think.

Nice, chic decor with cute little chandeliers.  Beautiful turquoise chairs.  Tables are placed very close to each other, so you can hear everything your neighbors are chatting about and check out each other’s orders.  =p

The wine/beer/cocktail menu and cheese menu are impressive.  There are a lot of selections to accommodate your mood of the night.  Heads up cheese lovers!
For beverage, Beau ordered a St. Ambroise Oatmeal Stout ($7) and I went with a demi ugni blanc ($3) ~ very light and peachy, just the right amount of wine I felt like that night.  Délicieux!  I especially like the various sizes of wine they offer – demi, glass, coupe, carafe, and bottle depending on the type of wine you pick.

Then the bread came ~ pretty standard French bread.

For appetizers you also have a choice of picking smaller portions – petits bijoux – what a cute name eh?  Be warned though, petits bijoux.. they really mean it! If you order the baby french onion soup, it’d come in this very cute little bowl that you can probably finish within a few bites.

Veal tongue, cucumber, celery ~ $14

Goat cheese & leek tart ~ $14

Veal and bone marrow, apples, lentils.  Yummy but a bit too salty to my liking ~ $25

Beef tenderloin & frites, blue cheese butter, arugula ~ $29.
Beau really enjoyed it.  The steak was just perfect.

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What do I think?
Food was definitely delicious and we enjoyed our time there.  BUT, it took them a loooooooooong time to get food out, not just to us, but to every single table that night.  There was this table of 4 who basically stood up and walked out – I hope they at least paid for the drinks.  We were there from 7:30 and we got our entrées around 9:15.  You could see everyone turning their heads and looking around to see if other people were getting food or not.  At the end, I asked the waitress if this happens every night.  Her initial response was that “this is a French restaurant and we are following the lazy French style”.  Eeek!  Wrong answer my darling.  We’ve been to numerous French tapas, bistro, restaurants in town, and hearing her response kinda threw me off right off the bat.  Then she went on saying the kitchen was short on staff and this one single chef was basically taking the place of the other 3 chefs and cooking for 120 tables.

The sad thing is my friend ViVi went there with her mom weeks ago.  There weren’t many tables at the time yet it also took them a looooooong time for the food to come out.  Even the cheese platter took forever.

I just think that if there are improvements needed to be made on the service in a restaurant, admit it and improve on it.  I’d be really sad to see the services jeopardizing a restaurant with talented chefs who make top-quality dishes!