The Food Gays do the Dine Out Vancouver Festival at Rocky Mountain Flatbread

The Dine Out Vancouver Festival is currently in full swing, and with so many options available this year, it can be somewhat intimidating navigating the seemingly endless array of options. The great news is that depending on your budget, there’s pretty much something for everyone.

While we've been pretty quiet on the Dine Out Vancouver Festival (DOVF) front this season, this past week we had the chance to visit Rocky Mountain Flat Bread Co. in Kitsilano, who hosted a super fun pizza making and beer tasting event.

Rocky Mountain’s menu is focused on artisan flatbread pizzas, fresh hand cut pastas, organic salads, seasonal soups and heavenly “to live for” desserts. They only use the finest organic produce, local free range meats, Ocean Wise seafood, and a number of gluten-free options are available.  They have two locations in the Lower Mainland, with a third in Canmore, Alberta. You can also find their frozen artisan pizzas in over 200 stores across Western Canada.

The Kitsilano restaurant is a fairly large space, with warm red walls and a great family friendly vibe. Once seated we got to choose our appetizer from their regular menu – something that is not offered on many DOVF experiences. We opted for their soup of the day, which was squash and banana. It had a really light, unique taste, and Jeremy commented on how much he liked it. The fig and goats cheese salad was both tangy and sweet, with cucumber, tomato, and red onion in a creamy black mission fig dressing. We paired these with a Stanley Park Noble Pilsner, a medium-light bodied Belgian style beer.

After our first course, we got to head back to the kitchen to make our personalized flatbread pizzas. We washed up and got to work – rolling out our dough, and choosing which toppings we wanted. It was actually a lot of fun, and we could see kids and adults alike having a great time making their own pizzas as much as we did. Currently the restaurant offers DIY nights for kids on Sunday and Monday evenings. We watched as our pizzas were popped into the large artisan pizza oven, and only a couple minutes later our custom-made pies arrived at our table. Now we got to reap the benefits of our labor! This round was paired with Stanley Park Brewery’s Belgian Style Amber, a medium light bodied beer we both loved.

We were getting pretty full, so it was time to tap into that “other” stomach for dessert. We ordered the warm double chocolate brownie, and the gluten-free handmade coconut cheesecake. Both were amazing, and we had no problem cleaning both plates. This course was paired beautifully with k Ale, which was a great match to both desserts.

Rocky Mountain Flat Bread Co. has an awesome prix fixe menu available for guests during Dine Out, so if you’ve never been before, now is the time. With over 80 different combinations in the $18 category, all from their regular restaurant menu – Rocky Mountain delivers a Dine Out experience truly comparable to what you would receive any day of the year.

The Dine Out Vancouver Festival is on now until February 3, 2013, with 240 participating restaurants and 50 events around the city. For more details visit http://dineoutvancouver.com.