The Italian Kitchen - Vancouver

This post is for the coworkers at the job I just finished on Wednesday! For one of my last days with the company they took me out for lunch to the Italian Kitchen! I had never been before, so it was a nice treat that they took me there! I took some photos of the food because it was really beautifully presented and the flavours were amazing! We sat in a section of the restaurant that was right near a big opening to the patio - thus we were almost half inside and half outside - the result was an awesome, bright and airy table! The servers were prompt for the most part and didn't bother us much, which is a nice change from the type of restaurants where your server interrupts conversation every five minutes to "see if everything is ok"... it was ok five minutes ago, what would have changed?! Any way, enjoy these photos of the food - it was great!

For a starter we had the Spicy Kobe Beef Meatballs - they were incredible! Topped with a sliver of parmesan cheese:

For the main course, everyone ordered a different dish... one co-worker ordered the wild salmon which came with a celery root puree and a sauteed spinach and prawn salad. It looked so good and it was beautifully presented:

I ordered the Quattro Fromaggio "Bianco" pizza which included caciocavallo, fontina, asiago and buffalo mozzarella (a lot of it). I don't think I would order this pizza again - they got a little carried away with the cheese and it ended up being quite greasy. I think with these types of cheeses, a little goes a long way and the pizza could have been flavourful without being incredibly greasy and loaded with cheese. But it did taste good nonetheless:

Two co-workers split the Pasta Platter which included the following menu items: spaghetti and spicy kobe meatballs with truffle cream, braised veal cannelloni with wild mushroom cream, pappardelle with lamb sausage, cabbage and potatoes, rigatoni pomodoro. It looked absolutely exquisite and everyone around the table enjoyed the tastes they took too:

Next up, one of my co-workers ordered a pasta bowl - I'm pretty sure this one was the Penne Arrabbiata (crispy pancetta, peperoncino, basil, and burrata cheese). It looked great:

Another one of the dishes we ordered was a pasta bowl as well and I also can't remember which one this is... I think it was the linguine with jumbo prawns and included oregano, capers, roasted tomato aglio olio:

Now that I'm laying out all these pictures, I'm realizing how much food we consumed at this lunch... wow, did we ever eat a lot! But it was so worth it. The co-workers who split the pasta platter also ordered the Proscuitto di parma pizza. As far as I'm concerned, this was the best dish I tasted at the lunch! It was great. Toppings included arugula, tomato sauce, and burrata cheese. I think burrata cheese is my new favorite kind of cheese! It was sooooo good and super creamy:

Last, but not least, we ordered the Chicken Saltimbocca. It included proscuitto, ricotta and panzanella salad. It looked delicious:

And since a lunch with this team would never be considered complete without dessert we ordered Zeppole ci Cioccolato. This dessert consisted of italian style doughnuts filled with chocolate ganache and served with creme anglaise for dipping. This dish was my favorite in terms of presentation, but I am not a huge fan of doughnuts, so it definitely wasn't my favorite dessert. Everyone else seemed to LOVE it though and it didn't last long on our table!

Thanks to a great team - I will miss working with all of you - thanks for treating me to such an awesome lunch and introducing me to a new restaurant!! :)