Au Petit Chavignol

My friend loves cheese and for her birthday we all decided to go to Au Petit Chavignol to gorge ourselves full of cheese! When we arrived we were greeted and seated right away. The restaurant is a small restaurant with booths and tables on one side and a long bar on the other side. It had a bit of a home-y feel to it.

We looked through the menu and decided that it was fitting to order some wine to go with the cheese. We wanted a white wine, but we weren't sure which one to get so our waitress brought us 3 samples to taste. She was really helpful and provided a lot of information on each of the wine samples she brought us. We finally decided on a Rose - 2009 L'Orangeraie.

2009 L'Orangeraie Rose

After deciding on the wine, we also ordered our food. We decided to all share the Grand Tasting Plate of Cheese & Charcuterie, 2 Fondues (The fondues were on special! Every Sunday, it's $19 fondues), Butter Lettuce Salad, Short Rib Poutine, and Four Cheese Macaroni.

Our Cheese and Charcuterie plate came first. On the bottom was the Charcuterie, the middle was the cheese and the top was the assortment of accompaniments. The waitress explained in detail each cheese and meat, which was nice. I like it when waiters/waitresses take the time to explain all the items on the dish and answer any questions you may have.

Grand Tasting Plate of Cheese & Charcuterie
Bread and crackers were also included in this platter!

Charcuterie
Tartufo Salami, Mild Chorizo, Proscuitto, Pate Maison, Jambo Serrano

The meats overall were all very good! I think my favourite one is the salami! The salami is flavoured with Tuscan black truffles and you can get a hint of that in the meat.

Cheese
Smits Mustard Gouda, Manchego, Le Dauphin (Brie),  Roche Baron (Blue Cheese), Sir Laurier D'Arthabaska (Quebec Cheese)

This was a good selection of cheese. The bleu cheese wasn't too strong and was pleasant to eat compared to other bleu cheeses. Even my friends who didn't like bleu cheese actually liked this cheese!

Accompaniments
Red Current Jelly, Wine Jelly, Cornichons, Silver onions

All the accompaniments compliment the cheese and meat very well!

Butter Lettuce Salad
Radishes, oranges, agridolce vinaigrette

We decided to order some greens to balance out all the cheese we were about to eat. The salad was fresh and the vinaigrette was light. Overall a very refreshing salad!

Short Rib Poutine
Slow cooked boneless beef short-rib

This poutine was sooo good! Had plenty of cheese and short-ribs and the fries tasted like they were freshly cut.

Four Cheese Macaroni
Gruyere, white cheddar, orange cheddar, Stilton

This was one cheesy macaroni! You can most definitely taste a hint of the Stilton cheese! One of my friends liked this dish so much that she scraped off all the cheese and cleaned out the dish!

Moitie-Moitie
Cave aged Gruyere, Vacherin Friebourgeois

This fondue was the lighter of the two. The cheese and wine were subtle, but wasn't over powering compared to the Rustique Fondue.

Rustique Fondue
Cave aged Emmenthal, Gruyere Etivaz

This fondue was the stronger of the two. The cheese and the wine were more prevalent in taste. I really liked this one, but my friends preferred the Moitie-Moitie one. They thought that the Rustique one had too much of a wine taste to it.

Chocolate Cookies!

And since it was my friend's birthday, the restaurant gave her a complimentary dessert which were this warm chocolate brownie cookies! They were still very hot when we received the bag. Cookies that are fresh out of the oven are the best! These ones were chocolate-y and had a texture of a brownie.

Overall Impressions: We all really enjoyed our experience at Au Petit Chavignol and will definitely return whenever we get our cheese cravings. They have great selection of cheeses, the food and service were great and we left with our tummies full.

Au Petit Chavignol
843 E. Hastings Street
Vancouver, BC
604.255.4218
http://www.aupetitchavignol.com/