Fuel Tuesday Night Braise and Beer

According to chef Robert Belcham and his team, cold weather comfort food is meat braised in beer. To share that sentiment, Fuel is featuring throughout the winter a different dish each Tuesday evening prepared with a beer from R&B Brewing, a local, award-winning craft brewery.

More inside…

Depending on the meat used, meals will be priced from $26-$28, which will include an amuse bouche; local, underutilized meats; local, organic winter vegetables; a glass of R&B beer, and a mignardise. Stout Braised Shin of Beef, Polderside Farm’s ‘Coq a la Biere,’ Confit of Sloping Hills Farm Pork, and Porter Braised Shoulder of Venison are just some of the dishes to be offered.

I visited Fuel on a particularly chilly (for Vancouver) Tuesday evening and was seated at the kitchen bar for a front row seat to the cooking action. I like having this seating option as you can discover details about your meal more readily by chatting with the chef than a server. It reminds me of dinner parties where people gather around the kitchen in anticipation of the coming meal. Of course, the kitchen staff have to be sociable and in sufficient control of the orders for this to work. Belcham was an obliging host, encouraging me to ask he and his staff any question that came to mind.

The meal started off with an amuse bouche of boudin noir on onion with chives and shallots. Slices of fresh baguette were served on a stone slab, accompanied by an oblong of butter and a small mound of coarse, flat salt crystals. My appetite was whetted.

The braise of the day was a Ragu of Sloping Hillss Pork Sausage & Hock cooked with R&B Bohemian Lager. Bohemian is a very accessible lager—bready flavour with a grassy hop aroma, clean taste, moderate body, light bitterness, and a dry finish. Its malt sweetness perfectly matched that of the hock and complemented the spice of the sausage. The hop bitterness then cut through some of the richness of the meat, while the carbonation cleansed the palate to savour the next bite.

The ragu was accompanied by pan fried potato gnocchi, fried cauliflower, Brussels sprouts leaves, and savory. Pork potato, and cabbage are classic elements of a meal that the Germans seem to have discovered work particularly well with lager. So it’s no surprise that the gnocchi and vegetables found an affinity with the Bohemian Lager. The toastiness of the fried gnocchi highlighted the bready taste of the beer. With such a combination, the Bohemian goes down effortlessly.

In my book, a fine meal is not complete without dessert. I chose the baked Fromage Frais Cheesecake with Concord grape sorbet & paper. The rich, concentrated flavour of the sorbet complemented the gentleness of the cheese. Alternating between the two ensures your palate doesn’t become dry. Cassis lambic would be the perfect dessert beer here. A mignardise of quince jelly, chocolate-covered almonds, Subway biscuit, and nougat concluded the evening.

I find it baffling why an upscale restaurant would be willing to compromise the quality of their beer offering when much attention to detail is given to everything else. Are they saying beer is second rate or beer aficionados are second class? Thankfully, this is not the case with Fuel. They weren’t coy about having beer–it’s on the menu–and the selection was decent. Of course there is room for improvement: more consideration could be given to seasonality (how about those winter beers?) and affinity with various menu items, e.g. dessert beer. Nevertheless, I commend them for making this foray and hope the experience will spur them to explore beer further.

Fuel Restaurant
1944 West 4th Avenue
Vancouver, BC
Tel: (604) 288-7905
www.fuelrestaurant.ca
Hours: lunch Monday-Friday, 12:00pm – 2:30pm; dinner seven nights a week from 5:30pm

~ RG

Tagged as: amuse bouche, Beer, Bohemian Lager, boudin, cheesecake, Concord grape, fromage frais, Fuel Restaurant, gnocchi, hock, lager, mignardise, pork, R&B Brewing, ragu, Robert Belcham, sausage, Sloping Hills, sorbet