Cafe Medina- Gastown

Cafe Medina is located a short distance from Stadium-China town sky train station, if you are having trouble finding it just look for the place with the line up outside. To celebrate semester being over and as an excuse to go downtown on a beautiful sunny day my girlfriend picked Cafe Medina for brunch. I have never been before but this place seems to be very highly regarded on Urbanspoon and their menu looked like it had some good dishes on it. We did notice it right away becuase of the line-up outside, it seemed because of the Sun Run it was extra busy.

My girlfriend ordered a Lavender Latte $3.60, I am no coffee drinker but it did look very nice. I tried some and really enjoyed it. There was a very faint taste of lavender which was nice. I got a little greedy and drank a good portion of it but I did let my girlfriend (who ordered it) have a couple sips.

Cafe Medina is famous for there waffles so we felt inclined to try one out. We ordered one to start off with to share between the two of us. Waffles are $3.15 each plus $1 for toppings. We got one Waffle with White Chocolate Pistachio Rosewater topping.

 I had been checking out what other people had been ordering since seating was rather cozy so I was pretty stoked when the waffle came out. Albeit being small, the topping was loaded with flavor and we quickly devoured the poor little waffle. Next time I think we will have to get a couple more.

The price is a little high for just one waffle and a topping but it was incredibly tasty. I think for the price they should give you two though. They had a milk chocolate lavender and a raspberry caramel topping which sounded very tasty.

 For my main dish I ordered the Les Boulettes $15 described on the menu as (2 poached eggs, spicy Moroccan meatballs, cilantro, hummus, raita. Grilled Foccacia). The description alone got me giddy for this to come (lamb? yes please). The meal came out served in a ceramic bowl. There were three decent sized meatballs, three little tomato's with an Olive on top and the two poached eggs in the center. The sauce was very good, and whenever a bit of cilantro got onto my fork I squealed like a little girl. I could not eat this fast enough.

 I wasn't too sure about the hummus at first, it kind of looked like mayonnaise that was squeezed out of a bottle but luckily for me it was hummus. I really liked hummus, this stuff wasn't anything over the top special but it was good. It was nice to dip the foccacia bread into it.

As much as I like trying different menu items, the next time I come here I will probably be ordering the same thing. The meatballs which were made from beef and lamb were excellent. There was just a little hint of lamb in each bite and I thought it was absolutely wonderful.

 My girlfriend ordered the Saumon Fume $12. Described on the menu as a "Open faced ciabatta sandwich. Fried egg, smoked salmon caper cream cheese, sliced avocado, arrugula pepperdew and artichoke salad". This is an exact quote from my girlfriend about her meal, "as soon as the salad entered my mouth it started watering uncontrollably", it was that good. Seriously.. we almost ran out of napkins from all her drooling.

I had a bite of the salad and at first I didn't taste anything out of the ordinary but two seconds later the flavor hit my taste buds and it was excellent. All the ingredients went together so well and my taste buds were pampered quite nicely.

Final Thoughts:

- Be ready to wait a while for a seat (especially on the weekend)
-Open Breakfast and Lunch

- The Saumon Fume and Les Boulettes are two great dishes

-Seating is pretty cozy so be careful what you talk about while eating

- My girlfriend said this is her new favorite place for brunch (sorry Provence Marinaside)