Review: The Red Accordion
My friend Paul got married to a great lady named Mandy a few years back and he kept telling me how great of a chef she was. I was like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, great chef, sounds good. K. Gotta Go!"
Over and over, he kept telling me how much success she was having. Eventually, she started cooking at the restaurant right across the street from my first apartment, The Portly Chef. We went and tried it out one night and I began to realize how talented she was.
Now, Mandy works at The Red Accordion downtown. Last week, Preet and I took my cousin and her boyfriend to the restaurant and my goodness, the food was outstanding! The menu was very simple, and every item we ordered was uniquely memorable.
The Red Accordion is stationed inside an old heritage building on Alberni Street, taking up two floors above one of the best city views in all of Vancouver. It's positioned on a little road, separate from many of the other restaurants in the area. You don't just happen upon it, you have to go there on purpose—and we did so gladly.
I don’t typically do food reviews on here, just tid-bits from my everyday life. I can't cook and I like to eat out three meals a day, which is why I took a few pictures of the items we ordered to share with you.
Sorry for the bad photography. Please know that the place looked fantastic in person.
To drink, I ordered a mojito. They didn’t put too much syrup in which was nice, and the flavor was great. I could have used a bigger cup but I guess they want you to order four drinks instead of one.
We started with the hummus. It was great and the bread was great. The whole thing was tasty and full of garlicky, citrusy flavour.
Next up was Beet and Citrus Salad. It was tossed in a charred honey and tarragon vinagrette which definitely made eating beets (not something I do often) very enjoyable. The citrus was a great touch as well.
For my main course, I had the Market Meat, which was romanced as a rotating variation of optimal quality meat. It was spectacular; soft, tender, flavorful. I highly recommend this to everyone.
Two of the people on the table had the, “It’s the Claw,” Lobster Gnocchi and they were blown away by it. They actually said they wanted to come back and have it again after the first bite. That's how you know it's good.
Preet ordered the, "Same Same but Much Different," which is essentially a plant-based Bolognese made with cauliflower and walnuts; a bunch of stuff that’s not meat…Naturally, I tasted it and was blown away by the flavour and texture. Very cool.
The "Sauteed Assortment of Vegetables" was great; very well-seasoned. It didn't taste that healthy to me but I pretended it was healthy anyway, which solved a few daily issues I have…
The fries were great. I think Heinz is the best Ketchup, followed by McDonald's Ketchup but if someone is going to make their own ketchup this was very good…
We had the, "Straight Up Fried Dough." It was something I haven’t seen before. They deep fry the loaf of sliced bread and put a bunch of cheese and garlic on it. My arteries were probably clogged after this, but my heart & stomach were full…
Obviously, we ordered both desserts. If you know me, you know that’s how it goes…Chocolate Budino was spectacular, Tiramisu was good but Budino definitely earned the higher grade.
The cool thing about this spot is that it doesn't fit into a box. If you live in Vancouver, every restaurant has the same menu items, looks the same, and is a chain. Mind you, they're usually good chains, but they're all pretty much the same.
That's definitely not the case at Red Accordion. It's a purposeful take on a different type of restaurant. Cool interior design, distinct location, unique building, one of a kind. I would definitely recommend it to everyone. In fact, it was so goods I had to write this review!
Ranking system goes like this… 8.0 or higher means you should get in the car and drive to it. 9.0 means you should probably stop what you're doing and go get some, NOW. 9.1-10… Google has it rated higher so they got that going for them, but definitely will be going again. Very cool spot.
I guess Paul was right after all...he married a Master Chef! Congrats on the new place Mandy!