Vancouver Island Restaurant Review; Mahle House

Tracey Cook (twitter@wtbfl) won a nice little contest through BonAppie (a $100 gift certificate to a restaurant of her choice!) and she picked The Mahle House Restaurant.
Since this is a restaurant that is on the top of my list to visit, she so kindly agreed to do a guest blog restaurant review. Thank you Tracey and I am hoping to get my own review up here sometime over the summer.




Last week we had the exciting opportunity to attend the second ever Long Table dinner at the Mahle house. We have had the opportunity of eating at many of the best restaurants around the world and this was on par with many of them.

We arrived at this beautiful heritage home in Cedar just outside of the city of Nanaimo. This was the first time we had attended an event like this one and it was a unique and interesting dining experience all being seated at one long table. The night began with the Amuse Bouche which was crab and scallop beignet with parsnip puree prosciutto wrapped prawn, tomato beurre blank which was absolutely delicious.

Following this wonderful introduction was terrine of grilled vegetable, goat cheese, sundried tomato and smoked paprika vinaigrette which left a beautiful taste in your mouth.



Next up was albacore tuna carpaccio sunomono salad, ponzu sauce. Unfortunately I have a fish allergy, however the owners were so accommodating and prepared the same dish only with lamb. This was very much appreciated.

By now your taste buds are going crazy craving more delicious food and out comes tortellini of brazed beef, porcini pasta, and roasted mushroom cream.

Next was the beef wellington, mushroom bearnaise sauce. glace de viande lets just say words cannot describe how tasty this was you need to experience it.



To finish everything off was candy ginger and pumpkin milk chocolate mousse cake, topped with sour cream mousse and candy pumpkin seeds and caramel. You have to experience this to believe it as it just melted in your mouth.

The hosts and owners of this lovely dinner Tara and Steven Wilson were wonderful kind and you could clearly see their love for the food and the importance of their guests, before every course Steven would explain to the guests what was coming up next and Tara would suggest the perfect wine paring for each course.

They are the ultimate professionals yet you felt like you were just having a dinner with the family. You walked in as strangers but you left with friends.

The atmosphere was inviting and relaxing and the conversation never stopped except to lift our glasses and toast to the perfect night.

Regards
Tracey and Warren Cook

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