Nu Restaurant

1661 Granville Street

Vancouver

Ph: (604) 646-4668 or Reserve online

I have previously enjoyed several leisurely lunches at Nu, seated on the patio overlooking the water. But since the format changed to feature food "inspired by the culture of the Mediterranean and the Aegean"  I had not had occasion to eat there. After several enthusiastic reports from friends, three of us decided to meander along the sea wall to Nu and have supper.

We decided that we would pick 4 mezethes, small appetizer plates to share between the three of us. The choice was tricky due to our interesting  combination of taste likes and dislikes. One of us, who has enjoyed a couple of meal at Nu recently,  spends considerable time on Cyprus and enjoys cooking Greek Cypriot dishes, specially lamb. Another loves dishes from the land but is not partial to food from the sea. And then there is me- I love most  foods except cilantro and olives ... oh and parsley and celery are also not favorites. But luckily only the olives are important here, and I was happy to donate my share of any olives to my friends.

To accompany the food, I decided on a glass of the Blasted Church 2009  Gewürtztraminer and one of my friends had a glass of chardonnay.

Out first came the smoked salmon tarama with chive infused oil and toasted pita bread. It was  topped with a spoonful of red salmon roe or what I usually think of as Ikura.  The traditional taramasalata is a blend of fish roe with olive oil and lemon juice.  The  chives infused in the olive oil gave it a beautiful  deep green hue, which I hope shows  in the picture. The pita was great to scoop up the tarama but  the overall smoky flavour of the tarama was too overpowering for my palate.

With the tarama plate came the spinach and feta filo triangles, served on a layer of  tsatziki with scattered toasted pine nuts, and  also the salad dish of thick tomato slices and cucumber, served with a slice of feta, fig vinegar, pine nuts and olive paste.

  We all really liked the presentation and flavours  of this dish, different to the more conventional form of  Greek Salad. My friends enjoyed the olives.

We were taking our time to enjoy sharing the food and  conversation. The table top was quite crowded with our  individual plates, the three dishes, and our drinks, so I asked our server to hold the fourth dish, the keftedes - lamb meatballs, tomato sauce, dried olives and olive oil - until we were done with the other three plates.

Whatever the reason, poor communication with the kitchen or between the staff, one of the other  servers brought out the meatballs which sat cooling and congealing on the table while we finished what was on our plates. That was a pity because we all love lamb and the flavour was  good, but they needed to be eaten warm.

I was a little disappointed overall but perhaps the enthusiastic recommendations from my friends had overly raised my expectations. Still I will reserve judgement till I have had a chance to pay a second visit and perhaps try one of the tempting main courses.