Tiny Bites - a Vancouver food blog

Misadventures at The Brave Bull (SteakCamp 2008)

10 Comments Karen HamiltonJune 26, 2008

The challenge was issued. Foodies around the city responded to the call. SteakCamp 2008 was born.

Our purpose: to dine and deliberate on The Brave Bull’s House of Steaks (known as The Brave Bull or simply The Bull).

Read on for a recap of this hallowed gathering and a review of the restaurant that Buzz Bishop was too scared to try.

Lessons of the interior: don’t judge a book by its cover

Ooh. What’s this?

Beaded curtains, Chinese lanterns, white strings of lights, flowers on every table? It was not at all the seedy, unkempt mess that I was expecting from the peeling paint of the storefront. Everything did look dated and admittedly run down, but it was not without its charm. You could even call it derelicte.

The Company

Fearless SteakCamp organizer Raul and myself were joined by fellows from the blogosphere and the twittering community. We whiled away the substantial wait for dinner with topics ranging from the interwebby to the philosophical. A few even managed to live-Twitter the event.

The Food

For what it is, this diner serves good food. Simply made, simply served. It felt like a weeknight meal at my grandmother’s house. The presentation was a little too in-flight meal meets TV dinner, but it was probably healthier than the Michelinas boxes and pizza pockets that get nuked in many a microwave on a Monday night.

The soups that started most meals were heartily enjoyed. The beef barley was a particular hit. The clam chowder, which was neither the white New England nor the red Manhattan, was coloured somewhere in between (but was nevertheless fulfilling).

One adventurous diner ordered the fried scallops. It met his hunger pangs as he waited for his main, but he said it wasn’t particularly memorable.

The $8.95 sirloin steak got mixed reviews. Some said it was good considering the price. Others barely touched their plate. Most still ate it all.

I ordered the $8.95 prime rib, which was also not a bad deal. Usually sauces are a welcome addition to my plate, but in this case I was hoping that the plethora of gravy wasn’t there to mask the quality of the meat. It was still tasty enough that I ate the bulk of it. I would have polished off the prime rib in its entirety if my small stomach could have afforded the room (this site isn’t called Tiny Bites for nothing).

A quick out-of-10 poll was taken halfway into the meal to gauge the reactions of the table. Food quality averaged out to about 7/10 (the lowest being 4 and the highest at 8). Everyone was also quick to qualify their rating with “for what it is….”.

The Service

Linda, the proprietress of The Brave Bull, is just about the most adorable hostess in East Vancouver. I have to say that her hospitality really made the evening for me. The way she mothered the table and told us what sides we’d each be getting evoked comparisons to my own sweetly strict grandmother.

To fully assess the level of service we experienced, let’s return to the beginning.

My husband and I arrived 10 minutes early and were greeted warmly by Linda. Unfortunately, we got her all atwitter when we announced that we were the early arrivals of a minimum party of 10. She fretted at the unexpected onslaught of diners for a Monday evening, but seated us at a long table in a quiet corner of the restaurant to await the rest of the crowd.

The remainder of the evening had Linda managing incoming traffic (warning regulars of an extended wait) and catering to our large table’s needs. I felt a little bad considering that it was just her and her husband manning the entire place. The food did take an hour to get to us, and it did trickle in in spurts, but we were forewarned and were well stocked with Coke and Kokanee.

As the bill arrived, Linda did something that established, fru-fru restaurants should take note of: she proactively assigned each diner a number and costed each diner’s meal (by hand on a notepad, I might add) so that we could manage the food bill per person. Drinks were tallied separately by type. How a 70-year-old woman can manage to split a bill individually when a Squirrel-equipped 3-star restaurant cannot is beyond my comprehension.

The Verdict

Did I enjoy the Bull? Yes, very much. Would I go there again? No. But let me qualify this no.

1. If you had a husband like mine, you wouldn’t eat steak at any restaurant, let alone this one. My husband is a fantastic cook and a fanatic when it comes to steak. Our Weber grill is put to good use in the summer; when it’s too chill to grill, he takes it to the stovetop and makes steak concoctions that puts places like Morton’s to shame. When you’re this spoiled at home, you wouldn’t feel the need to go elsewhere either.
2. There are diners within walking distance of our home. We are downtown folk. For convenience, we do own a car, but it often collects dust in our garage for weeks before family obligations force us out of our 10 km walking radius. Since our apartment is situated within a 5-minute walk from mom-and-pop establishments like Homer Cafe and The Templeton, going to an institution like The Brave Bull would take second place (or is it 3rd?) to the ones that we can foot it to.
3. My lola is an awesome cook too. Perhaps the reason I enjoyed my meal so much is that it was so reminiscent of what my grandmother used to make for me in high school. Granted, the meat was not prime rib and the preparation had a Filipino flair, but you get the gist. If I were to ever crave a homey dinner with a grandmotherly presence, I’m blessed to still be able to satisfy that craving by visiting family.

I wish everyone reading this could be similarly equipped with a gourmet of a spouse or a grandmother that could run a restaurant out of her kitchen. If this is not the case for you, and you do want to bask in the old-school homestyle dining that is the Bull, please do check it out. It’s worth the journey at least once.

Will you venture out to The Brave Bull?

Have you already dined at The Brave Bull? Were you at SteakCamp and have something to add? Has this post piqued your curiosity enough to try it now? Inquiring minds want to know. Leave a comment with your thoughts.

Brave Bull’s House of Steaks
1298 E Hastings St | Vancouver
(604) 253-4728

Don’t forget to check out these other great reviews of the Bull:

• Raul’s recap of SteakCamp and The Brave Bull
• Viaduct braves The Brave Bull

Categories: Commercial Drive, Events, Food, Restaurants

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