Dineout Vancouver 2014 Part 1: Baru Latino

January is a special time of the year for Vancouver food lovers. Come mid-January the Dineout Vancouver Festival rolls around. It's during this time that the city enjoys 3 course meals for either $18, $28, or $38 at restaurants that would offer those same meals at a higher price for the rest of the year. We find it a good way to discover new eats or try things that don't normally fit in our "eating out" budget. Our first feature restaurant in 2014 is called Baru Latino, which is located in Point Grey/ Kitsilano close to the University of British Columbia.

Here's a look at their Dineout menu 

Baru Latino, from its name, is a Latin restaurant. Most Latin restaurants in town feature tapas, but Baru also has a solid lineup of Latin main courses and features Live Jazz on Monday nights. You can find their dineout menu here .

Ecuadorian Ceviche

Beef Tiradito

We ordered two kinds of appetizers. The Ecuadorian ceviche uses less fish and more other seafood and is served with a root vegetable biscuit. Later on we found out they offer two other kinds of ceviche which is made very differently depending on the Latin region. We also had the Beef Tiradito - a Latin rendition of carpaccio.

Paella! 

We made a unanimous decision to both order the Paella -- because this might have been the first time we've had Paella since moving to Vancouver. This Paella felt very fresh - without all the oily stuff we were expecting. The rice is less sticky and it's less loaded with chorizo and chicken, but filled with a lot of good seafood. The Paella is also served in a plate in a sizeable portion that we didn't worry about overstuffing ourselves, thankfully we had room for dessert...

which we forgot to snapshot. The dineout menu doesn't give diners a choice on dessert, but it does not disappoint! The Latin flan (better known to us as Leche Flan) was nice, sweet, VERY creamy and is served with a berry compote on top and mango/raspberry puree on the side. We'll be tweaking our existing recipe in a future entry to achieve a less gelatinous and more creamy texture to replicate this so stay tuned! 

Overall, it was a good dining experience and we're likely to come back to either try the other types of ceviche or more of the tapas not offered in the Dineout menu. Cheers!