M8 Bistro & Bar: 5-course Asian fusion tasting menu in Vancouver
M8 Bistro & Bar is an Asian fusion restaurant featuring Chinese-Italian cuisine. They are located in downtown Vancouver and is kind of hidden under the Burrard Bridge along the Yaletown/False Creek seawall.
We were invited to try their new 5-course tasting menu. This 5-course tasting menu is supposed to be the “complete M8 experience” as it comes with 5 dishes of the chef’s own recommendations. Regular price for this tasting menu is $60 per person and minimum is 2 people to order this.
Discount! Mention my Instagram username (@sincerelyloewe) to receive $10 off the tasting menu. Valid until the end of March 2020.
Interior
The interior and decor of M8 is very cool and trendy. Their visual concept is Beijing opera with a palette of silver, green, turqoise and white/marble.
The entire space is generally on the smaller side but they can seat 35+ comfortably. We are seated in a booth on the left. The velvety green chairs are so comfy!
They have a beautiful and giant wooden table (the ones with irregular sides) that look ideal if you are planning a birthday party or some sort of a large group dining event.
Their bar is beautiful and they also have a patio outside, which will be nice when the weather is warmer.
Drinks
M8 Cosmo ($10) and Whiskey sour ($13)
We order 2 drinks – the M8 cosmo and the whiskey sour.
The M8 cosmo is basically a cosmopolitan with long table vodka, cointreau and cranberry juice. It is topped with frosecco and citrus rind. A very fruity and slightly sour drink.
The whiskey sour is a classic cocktail with bourbon, fresh lemon juice and house made simply syrup. They add Angostura bitters and egg white. This is a much stronger cocktail but goes down smoothly.
5-Course tasting menu
First course: Grandpa’s crispy mushroom
The server calls this first dish a “mushroom tempura”. They use Shimeji mushrooms and then batter and fry them tempura style. On the sides, they have warm kale and wakame (type of black seaweed) with a truffle aioli sauce. Regular price for this dish is $10.
So this first plate smells really good when it arrives at our table. It is also very interesting – a common theme throughout all the dishes in this menu. I have never heard of or tried mushroom tempura, but it is quite a tasty appetizer. The tempura is not greasy and the batter is not thick – it actually sticks onto the mushrooms quite well.
I am also pleasantly surprised about the small kale salad it is paired with. Usually kale is quite bitter but not in this case. It is tasty and the seaweed gives it a different texture. And as usual, I love truffle aioli.
Second course: Beef cheeks
The second course is beef cheeks. These beef cheeks are braised and to accompany this meat, they use lotus root glazed with a 5-year-aged vinegar and some roasted peanuts. Regular price for this dish is $16.
Something about braised meats just always remind me of my mom’s cooking. She makes braised meats quite often and I find that the sauce is always the same. Most likely because this is also a Chinese fusion restaurant and my mom often does Chinese cooking. So the actual braised beef cheeks taste very familiar and homey to me. The meat is soft and very saucy.
Again, I am pleasantly surprised by the vegetables. The lotus roots are cooked 2 ways – one is glazed with the vinegar and cut into small chunks. The second way is cut really thin, almost resembling a chip. Both are yummy and add a crunchy texture to the otherwise very soft meat.
Note that this is considered an appetizer dish so the portion size is smaller than an expected main. For an appetizer though, it’s big! Also the plate is really big and they plate it in a way that can make it look smaller than it actually is.
Third course: Crispy roast duck
The third course is crispy roast duck. They have 3 pieces of dry-aged duck breast and duck confit hidden in the salad next to it. For the salad, they actually have a vegetable cassoulet. Cassoulets are usually slow-cooked casseroles with meat and beans. Here, they use preserved mustard greens, purple cabbage and citrus fermented bean paste. Regular price for this dish is $28.
Similar to the lotus roots from before, we essentially have duck cooked 2 ways. One is dry-aged with a crispy skin, the other is a cold duck confit. I say cold because it is not hot/warm, but it is actually a very nice meat pairing with the green cassoulet. The duck confit meat is very soft has a very natural and subtle flavour. The duck breast is yummy and you can dip it into the savoury duck sauce on the plate. Again, this is a very familiar Chinese taste.
The vegetable cassoulet tastes much better than I would have expected. I like the fermented bean paste taste and they slow-cooked their greens and cabbage to give it lots of flavour.
Fourth course: Gong bao foie gras
The 4th course is the Gong bao foie gras, or as I’d like to call it, “foie gras rice”! Foie gras is a French delicacy and it is the fatty liver of a duck or goose (I am thinking duck in this case). It is kind of a controversial food since these ducks/gooses are not treated very well in the making of this, so I’m just going to leave that here. From a food standpoint, it is ridiculously rich and delicious, kind of like butter.
This dish uses roasted wild mushroom and la chang (Chinese) sausage. They use short grain rice and it is kind of sticky and crunchy, similar to the bo zai fan (clay pot rice). Regular price for this starter is $25.
The rice is similar to the clay pot rices I’ve eaten in the past, but the foie gras makes it taste so much more indulgent. They do use a sort of gong bao glaze which can be mistaken for oil.
Fifth course: Tiger prawn bucatini
The last course is the tiger prawn bucatini. Out of all the dishes we taste so far, this one looks and seems the most Italian-inspired. This pasta dish uses tiger prawn, roasted tomato, garlic chive pesto and roasted squash. Regular price for this main is $26.
The server gives us a little background on this pasta: it is inspired by Chinese dumplings. They use the fillings of the dumpling – prawn/shrimp, chives, etc. and have it deconstructed as pasta toppings. We think this is a cool idea, but I think the execution of this fell a bit short. This dish – among all the previous ones – are delicious but we find the other dishes to be more unique and special than this one. If the server had not told us the inspiration about this dish, I would have just classified it as a Chinese-style pasta – one that is not as rich or cheesy as your classic Italian pasta.
The noodles they use are interesting. They are cooked to al dente but are hollow inside. We are not sure if these noodles are made in-house or if they are Chinese-style noodles.
Dessert
We order a dessert that catches our eye. Note that a dessert plate is not included in their 5-course tasting menu.
Fried milk custard ($9)
My boyfriend and I watched a Youtube video on how to make deep fried milk but we have yet found a place that offers this dessert (fyi it looks hella hard to make). So when we see this dessert on M8’s menu, we decide to try it.
The dessert is quite big and good for sharing. What you see in the center that looks like a giant french fry is the fried milk custard. On top they have strawberries and meringue and some sort of a crumble.
For a liquid, they fry it quite well. The outside is crunchy and keeps the liquid inside. We find that the custard inside does ooze out once you crack it open (in the video, the custard kind of stays in shape), but this tastes nice when you dip the meringue in it.
A sweet and unique dessert!
Final thoughts
What we have here is a hidden gem. We are blown away by their tasting menu and are very impressed with all areas of the business – interior, service and food.
Food? Delicious. Unique. Very fusion. They use good ingredients and put them to good use in new and different ways. All of the dishes we tried are things we haven’t thought of putting together – mushroom tempura, a vegetable casserole, foie gras and clay pot rice. Notably, we want to give a big shout out to the vegetables in all the dishes too.
Vegetables are often overlooked in cooking. It’s hard to make vegetables taste good and I’m not just saying this because I’m a child inside a grown woman’s body. I’m saying this because it is actually hard to make vegetables taste good – there’s a lot of prep involved in order to bring out the flavours. On top of this, vegetables are just never compared to the same calibar as a meat dish. M8 makes veggies the hidden star in their dishes in natural and balanced ways. It surprised us!
Plating for everything is beautiful and modern. At the same time, they are not stingy on portion sizes. I find the sizes of everything to be reasonable and quite balanced. For $60 per person, I think this menu is worth it. If you add up all 5 dishes, you will see the actual cost would be $105 per person before tax or gratuity. Therefore, you are saving ~$40 with the tasting menu.
I’m not sure how flexible their tasting menu is. They do use nuts so if you are allergic, I’m not sure if that can be amended. I did not see vegetarian or gluten-free substitutes either, so this is something to keep in mind if you have dietary preferences or restrictions.
We had a wonderful evening. The restaurant had a romantic ambiance and they play trendy music. Food was delicious and unique so we will be back to try some of their other fusion creations.
Sincerely, Loewe