January 3rd, Fuel on 4th opened up. I was one of the fortunate souls who had a chance to check the place out last year before the official opening and blogged about the experience (with lots of great photos) HERE.

Well, I couldn’t resist it – on opening day, Nina and I checked FUEL out again for lunch and are now officially FUEL’s first official customer.
For those not up to speed, first, the skinny:

FUEL Restaurant
1944 West 4th Avenue, Vancouver (MAP)
TEL: 604-288-7905
FAX: 604-288-2700
WEB: fuelrestaurant.ca

Fuel is owned by Robert Belcham and Tom Doughty both famous for their contribution to C restaurant in Vancouver.

Here are some great photos from the opening day lunch experience at Fuel Restaurant along with a description (below):

So what did lunch entail?

The wine of choice by Tom was the Mezza Corona Pinot Grigio. I enjoyed the sablefish, with button mushrooms for my first course. Pork belly, braised all night, with a cauliflower and olive gratin.

Nina enjoyed the warm Maitake & Yellowfoot Chantrelle mushroom salad to start, followed by pork belly of her own, accompanied by fraser valley beets and arrowleaf spinach.

For dessert we enjoyed vanilla ice cream, lime sorbet, pineapple sorbet and chocolate truffles accompanied by Tom’s legendary West Coast Soda.

After that, I went home and took a very long, well deserved nap.

Last week while out on a Martini Tour with Josh Bender’s crew, at the final stop, AuBar, we enjoyed a few drinks and a little absurdity in the VIP section.

Here we are, sitting around having a good chat when from one of the attendees we hear, “I’m thirsty!”

After a few moments, again, “I’m thirsty!”, echoed the blonde girl.

We’re sitting in the VIP section, we have our very own server (the illustrious Wendie, pictured HERE), so I mention to blonde girl, that the service is pretty good, the bar is close by and since we’re in the VIP section, there’s no lineup.

She mentions to me, “No, you don’t get it.”

The first thing that comes to mind, she’s not even cute, and she wants someone to buy her a drink? Everyone at the table is clueless so I clarify, “So, let me get this straight. You expect these people you don’t know to buy you a drink and that’s because…”

She clarifies, “I’m a woman.”

Okay, so because she’s a girl, I’m supposed to buy her a drink? I REALLY don’t get it. I’m all for taking care of MY people but some utterly obnoxious stranger who decides she needs another drink? Yeesh!