Dining Out at the Flying Tiger

I'm pretty new to the whole Dine Out thing, having only been once in the past for a friend's birthday, but when I actually checked out the participating restaurants this year, I knew I had to try a couple. First up was The Flying Tiger, a westside place that I've been wanting to check out forever but hadn't managed to get to yet.

They bill themselves as "Modern Asian Street Food" which clearly covers a lot of ground - everything from indian spices to Japanese sushi to Thai curry to Vietnamese Sablefish and more! While I wouldn't call the mussels my girlfriend had "street food", who am I to nit-pick when it tastes so good?!

For an appetizer I had the Toro Tuna Sashimi Tempura, which was delicately flavoured and amazing, and my girlfriend had the mussels, which were done in a Thai Red Curry Sauce. They also came with fry bread, which I stole most of only to find out that my main course - the Mumbai Chaat Masala - had it as a dougy container for the dhal, masala potatoes, raisin and mint chutneys and yogurt-dressed cucumber stuffing. This is street food at it's finest - the kind that doesn't even need a plate. Luckily, at the Flying Tiger, it does come on a plate (I'm messy enough without having to deal with that), and the plate it came on was like an enormous cafeteria tray full of flavours. Naturally, I wasted no time assembling them in different combinations. My girlfriend had the Pulled Duck Confit Crepes with exotic eastern greens and as her dinner also required assembly there were long stretches without conversation as we happily experimented with various tastes.

Of course we got thirsty after all this work and we washed it down with fancy concoctions like "Dragon Slayers" and "Airi-Chans" whose ingredients included various tea-infused liquors and juice from fruits that don't grow on this continent. For dessert we ordered the coconut cassava cake and chocolate-covered bananas, which we both loved, but I'd still like to try the Coconut Milk soup with plaintain and taro at some point.

It's hard for me to say bad things about an evening out, because it's always fun and exciting and even if the food is just ok, I don't usually mind that much, but The Flying Tiger was not just ok.The staff were friendly and fun, the decor was both modern and cosy and the food was fabulous. Like many other Vancouver establishments these days, they are filling their kitchen with natural, local and organic choices when they can, which is always something I like to see. And if they can pull that all together into such a positive experience during Dine Out, then I'm convinced that they're a solid gold-star choice for eating out. We will definitely be going back. Soon.

The Flying Tiger
2958 West 4th Ave
www.theflyingtiger.ca
604-737-7529