Chives Canadian Bistro
1537 Barrington St
www.chives.ca
I arrive at Chives at 8 pm on a Friday night with 2 good friends. All of us are really looking forward to it as none of us have been here and we hear amazing things. We are greeted and seated immediately. We wait a few minutes for our waiter to show up with menus. He tells us the specials, gets us some water and leaves. He leaves us for too long. We are ready to order drinks and all of our food by the time he is back at the table.
The menu here is extensive, with wine pairings beneath all dishes listed on the menu. My friends are thrilled to see they still have Nova 7 on their wine list. This delicious, fruity, slightly sparkling wine makes a great start to the evening.
Quickly after our orders are placed, a paper bag arrives with warm, freshly baked buttermilk biscuits inside. These are served with whipped butter and molasses. This combination is a classic and was a lovely way to start off our meal.
I order the feta, tomato and basil salad to start, as does one of my dinner companions. We both agree this is a great salad. With heirloom tomatoes, olives, olive tapenade and good balsamic, it’s got big flavours and is delicious. What takes it over the top is the feta. Panko crusted and flash fried; the normally hard cheese turns into a creamy, salty ball with a delicious crunchy coating. It is a perfect foil for the tomatoes and vinegar.
The other appetizer ordered is the mussels. A word to the wise, this appetizer is enough for 2 people to enjoy. My friend can’t finish them for fear of not being able to eat her main course. They are cooked in a lovely tomato sauce and served with a toast point. The sauce is thicker than most mussel cooking liquids I’ve seen in the city and this is a nice change. It is easily picked up with the mussel shells. There is smoky chorizo sausage in it and the flavours of the sauce work well with the mussels.
The decision on what to eat for my main was a difficult one. Many of the items on the menu were extremely appealing. I end up choosing the maple sausage and bacon stuffed pork loin and it is a decision I am glad I made. The pork is stuffed with sausage and coated in house made bourbon barbeque sauce. I was worried that the sausage inside would be really greasy and ruin the sauces around it by oozing out its fat. It was, however, perfect. Very moist but not overly oily, it is subtly flavoured and amazing with the barbeque sauce and pork. This dish is served with potato gnocchi in a three cheese sauce. You can tell the gnocchi are made by a pro because they are perfectly creamy and melt in your mouth. No springy balls of dough here. The three-cheese sauce on the gnocchi is lovely. Thick and creamy, while not overly rich, it mixes well with the barbeque sauce on the pork. Roasted root veggies round out this amazing dish. I ask the server to give my compliments to the chef and I hope he did.
The other contender for my main was the free-range chicken carbonnara and my friend helps me out by ordering it for himself. Carbonnara is a traditional Italian pasta dish in which raw eggs and cheese are added to hot pasta to make a very smooth, creamy sauce. It can be difficult to make. You wouldn’t know that if you ate this carbonnara. The sauce is perfection. It is very smooth with no lumps of cooked egg. It is light enough that my friend was able to eat most of the dish without finding it too rich. The pasta is cooked perfectly al dente. However, it is the bacon in this dish that my friend raves about. Thick cut, double smoked and not too fatty, he makes us all eat some and it truly is delicious. I go back for a second bite of the pasta, sauce, and bacon combination.
The third member of our dinner party orders the Mediterranean lamb shank. This lamb is braised in red wine and is fall apart tender. The lamb is very gamey and my friend is a little put off by this. This is a risk you take when ordering lamb. Sometimes the flavour is subtle and light, sometimes it slaps you in the face. I try it and agree that it does have a strong flavour but that it is cooked perfectly. It is served with a rice pilaf and house made tzatziki. My friend has trouble finishing the dish. We agree, however, that this is mostly because of the huge amount of mussels she had as her starter.
Our plates are cleared and dessert menus are handed out. Once again, our server leaves us for far too long. During our meal, a very large party arrives with at least 20 people sitting at a long table down the centre of the restaurant. Our server does not appear to be involved in the service at that table so there was no excuse for leaving us for the length of time that he did. When he finally does return, we order a chocolate peanut buster to share and I order a decaf cappuccino. These both arrive very quickly. The peanut buster has a flourless chocolate torte topped with house made peanut butter ice cream, chocolate ganache and peanuts. It is truly to die for. If I had not been in a public place, I would have licked the plate clean. The cappuccino is served in a small cup and saucer and is wonderful with our dessert. Sometimes decaf coffees can lack the flavour of their caffeinated siblings, but not with this coffee.
Overall, we had a lovely meal at Chives. The atmosphere is lovely there, with head chef Craig Flinn coming out of the kitchen periodically to check on the service. He knows several of his customers well and greets them with hugs. I wish I had been able to talk to him, as I have been a fan for some time. I have one of his cookbooks and use it regularly.
The service was the only glitch in our evening. Now, I have had far worse service than this and been to far worse restaurants. However, if I learned anything about Craig Flinn that evening, it is that he prides himself on a well-run restaurant. I agree with giving people time to chat and peruse the menu, but the length of time given to us was far too long. Service aside, I will surely be back because that was some of the best food I have ever eaten in this great city of Halifax.
Major compliments to the chef!
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