Restaurant Review: South Granville’s best-kept secret
Christine G. Louie, Associate Staff Contributor
Visit Salade de Fruits Café’s website at www.saladedefruits.com for menus and hours.
Salade de Fruits Café
1551 West 7th Avenue,
Vancouver, B.C. (604) 714-5987
For any person wishing to explore culinary sensations beyond the student staple of KD and ketchup, Salade de Fruits Café offers a delectable alternative. Since opening in the French Cultural building back in the fall of 1999, Salade de Fruits has been providing Vancouverites with fabulous French food. Easily Vancouver’s most beloved bistro, this casual café is also one of the city’s best-kept secrets. Best of all, with lunch specials as low as $6.99 and three-course dinner to be had for only $21.99, their modest pricing makes it an ideal spot for students yearning to explore French cuisine.
Set in the South Granville district, Salade de Fruits is located in an area spotted with independent art galleries, medical offices, and salons. Tucked away on W. 7th Avenue, a block away from Granville Street, Salade de Fruits can be easily overlooked. Inside this tiny bistro, gastronomic wonders are produced in the open kitchen; the heavenly aromas of home-style French cooking billow out, awakening customers’ senses. The pretty patio brims over with office workers enjoying the last bit of summer, their animated conversation flowing inside.
The majority of the bistro’s patrons come from the nearby offices; my lunch partner herself is a freshly appointed civil servant. Her crisp, neatly tailored suit, polished shoes, and business-like manner startlingly contrasts my permanently ink-stained hand and carefree spirit. While we ate, she spoke of the hardships of becoming a homeowner in Vancouver. I raved about my most prized material possession, the U-Pass. She told me what stocks were hot. I marvelled over the economic benefits of SFU’s book buyback plan. She told me about her long-term investments while I wondered when my next GST cheque would come. Despite our dissimilarities, we both agreed Salade de Fruits offers good-value food to its customers, whether it’s for the aspiring bureaucrat or eternal student.
The food at Salade de Fruits is best described as fresh, simply prepared, and generous in portion. A sliced baguette was promptly served — the bread soft and warm on the inside and crusty on the outside. Ice water was also immediately brought to our table in a glass carafe. The moules et frites ($11.99) arrived with puffs of steam wafting up, the P.E.I. mussels fat, perfectly steamed little morsels sitting in the most fragrant of broths. Accompanying the pot of shiny black shells lay a stack of fresh-cooked pomme frites, still glistening from their bath of hot oil. Crispy, golden-brown, and thinly sliced, the pomme frites were perfect for dipping into the pool of broth or the little container of their homemade mayonnaise. The calamari dish came in thick ringlets, fried to a glorious golden-brown, and looking ravishingly hot. The smoked-salmon baguette was clean tasting, jazzed up with capers and sweet onions, and sandwiched in the same lovely bread. The steak dish was pounded into a thin large slab, arrived on top of a layer of gravy-smothered frites. At dinner, Salade de Fruits offers a weekly table d’hotes for $21.99, with traditional dishes such as carnard confit and lapin grille aux olives.
The pastry god at Salade de Fruits makes all the desserts in-house — his pastries are unearthly, calorie-laden works of decadence. The Chiboustier was a creamy, cake-like dessert — sweet yet restrained, and with an aftertaste of almond. The gateau ganache, dessert crepes, and crème brulée are also choices, each dessert costing only $3.99. Better yet, try three desserts for $10.99. The loveliest of cream puffs sailed by our table, and just as I was just about to suggest that we share the dessert plate, my friend looked at her watch and announced that she was late for a meeting. Next visit will require a tighter time schedule, to ensure dessert won’t be missed.