Trattoria Burnaby

Time for round 2 of Dineout Vancouver 2019! A place that we had yet to visit was Trattoria Burnaby and from what I’ve been reading, they had a pretty good line-up of items so we decided to head there for dinner.

Remember how I said that Trattoria Burnaby had a good line up of items? Well…as soon as we got settled…our server told us that they ran out of their brushetta appetizer, their prosciutto wrapped cod and their canolis! So in other words…they didn’t have half of their menu options available. Needless to say, it was a disappointment because we came because they had those 3 items.

Mussels & Clams

★★

We decided go get the Mussels & Clams fennel and tomato broth with garlic forno crostini to start. Unlike the photo that was put on their Instagram, the portion was half the size and the “crostini” was just a limp piece of bread that was made limper by the tomato broth. The plate wasn’t carefully put together either and it merely looked like a bunch of stuff thrown onto a plate. It was also cold when it got to our table. I expected more from a restaurant by the Glowbal Group.

Since we weren’t able to get the Dineout menu choices we wanted, we decided to get some of their other menu items as well.

Gamberi Genovese

★★★★

This Gamberi Genovese pizza was probably the most “bang for your buck” item on the menu. It was topped with mascarpone pesto, soleggiate tomatoes, prawn, macedonian feta, red onion, and arugula. There was a decent amount of topping on top of the pizza but unfortunately the crust was limp and couldn’t even hold the toppings up. We ended up having to eat the slices with forks and knives because the crust was so limp. As with the appetizer, this pizza came to our table at room temperature. I thought pizza out of an oven is supposed to be hot!

Short Rib Pappardelle

★★★

We couldn’t go to an Italian restaurant without trying their pasta so we decided to try their Short Rib Pappardelle. For $21 a place, this was definitely not worth it. While there was a decent amount of braised short rib on it, there wasn’t enough pasta, pine nuts, wild mushrooms, or soleggiate tomatoes to make this dish remotely filling.

It was supposed to have café au lait on it but we couldn’t taste any of it and the pasta was quite dry without any sauce. I’m starting to feel like a broken record so I’ll just say that in general nothing we were served this evening was hot. Everything was luke-warm and that’s not acceptable in my book. I wouldn’t get this again or recommend it at this price point.

Wild Mushroom Gnocchi

★★★★

Next up was the Wild Mushroom Gnocchi from the Dineout menu. It had a variety of mushrooms in it and a sprinkling of ricotta salata. The gnocchi pasta was soft and pillowy and there was a scant handful of mushrooms in it. As with the short rib pappardelle, there wasn’t a lot of sauce to it so it lacked in flavor.

Chicken Cacciatore al Forno

★★★★

The other item we got from the Dineout menu was the Chicken Cacciatore al Forno which was a roasted chicken in pepper stew. The chicken was dry and needed the stew to help add some moisture. The roasted veggie base was a delight though and because the pasta dishes we ordered was lacking in flavor we put some of this on there. This dish was topped with parmesan crusted polenta croutons which we expected to be crispy but since they were on the stew, they ended up being a soggy lumpy mess.

Tiramisu

★★★

We were all super excited to hear that they had canolis on the menu but nope. Sorry, they were out of those too so we ended up getting a tiramisu as the replacement dessert. This wasn’t remotely as exciting as canolis but it was pretty tasty. It had layers of mascarpone mousse sandwiched between espresso soaked lady fingers. Even though it was one of the only things we found to be delicious the entire evening, we wished that they took the time to make it look fancier? I mean Trattoria is a restaurant that is supposed to give a “finer dining” experience.

Our bill came out to $100 and we all left Trattoria Burnaby feeling disappointed and dissatisfied.

Quick bites:

1. Small portion sizes compared to price
2. Food not served hot
3. MAYBE it’ll be worth it if you come on $13 pasta Tuesdays….but otherwise I wouldn’t come again.