The frills are gone, but the tastes remain
Mia Stainsby
Sun
Refuel may not have all the refinement of its predecessor, Fuel, but it still serves delicious meals with friendly service. Photograph by: Mark Van Manen, PNG, Vancouver Sun
AT A GLANCE
Overall: 4 out of 5
Food: 4 out of 5
Ambience: 3 1/2 out of 5
Service: 3 1/2 out of 5
Price: $$
Hours: Open daily from 11:30 to midnight. Brunch on Saturday and Sunday.
1944 West Fourth Ave., 604-288-7905.
www.refuelrestaurant.com
It’s hard for casual restaurants to consistently hit home runs, given the need to rein in costs. Refuel sure hit a lot of homers over my two visits.
Good quality ingredients, great technique, especially the restaurant’s commitment to butchering and cooking their own pork from snout to tail, is quite evident.
Refuel, as you might know, was bullied into existence by the recession; it used to be Fuel, a more ladi-da restaurant, with more complex, fashionable food.
Average diners benefit from this change of life; gone are the frills and fancy service; dishes are simplified but the kitchen still reveres quality ingredients. And the talented Robert Belcham is still in the kitchen, just as tenacious as ever about serving great food. It’s homier, more robust food but without sloppiness or carelessness.
Mains cost $14.50 for a delicious burger to $22 for salmon. Plates are ample and you leave quite possibly suppressing satisfying burps. My favourite, the Polderside buttermilk chicken, features three substantial pieces of moist, flavourful chicken and comes with coleslaw and a biscuit.
Humboldt squid is battered and deep-fried, but it’s ethereally delicate.
By the way, I love the bread, too (not a bargain at $2 for three slices but it left me pining for more) and the homemade butter (50 cents).
Some of the appetizers will leave you groaning towards the main course — scrapple (pork terrine topped with fried egg on toast, a Pennsylvania Dutch dish) and the appetizer-size spaghetti carbonara (peppery and not too oily) are two such delicious, but filling appies. Proceed with caution.
Roasted bone marrow served on the bone was “too barbaric looking” for the more refined Fuel, Belcham says. “I’ve always wanted to do it, but it wasn’t necessarily fine dining.”
And neither is the dry-aged beef burger, which you can order medium-rare as the meat (chuck and neck) is ground in-house. Neck meat, he says, is an extremely flavourful part.
Ling cod, not always a dazzler, is very good here; the meat is snowy white and firm but pluckable.
Try to make way for dessert and make it the peanut and chocolate parfait with honeycomb at that. I cannot quite describe it to you because I kind of blacked out from sheer pleasure. Just take my word for it. If you like chocolate and peanuts, you’ll love this.
Belcham says business has tripled since the concept change and finds it’s worthwhile keeping the restaurant open through the afternoon for afternoon pick-me-ups; there are snacks to bridge the gap to dinner.
Service isn’t quite as polished as I remember from the Fuel days, but appropriately friendly for the place it’s become.
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