This is a new event with a catchy name from the same festive folks who have brought Rose Disco and Country Club to Vancouver. Although this one is centred around wine and pasta, and shines the lime light on Commercial Drive’s Little Italy.
Held at Grandview Park, guests were welcomed in with their own collectable tote bag in their choice of green or red. Inside, a sheet of vouchers for two full glasses of wine and four pasta tickets, valid at all the four restaurant pop-ups. And to drink and eat out of: a souvenir plastic wine cup and tasting plate with built-in wine glass holder. The only thing missing was a checkered napkin and matching cutlery.
Guests were asked to wear the same red and green, or azzure blue to match the theme. Although, looking around not many folks took this dress code to heart, myself included.
General admission was $95 per person and included all of the above. And once your vouchers ran out you could buy more via app. $7 for one token, and one said token got you a 2.5oz pour of wine. Two tokens were required for the full pours we were getting below. The pastas however were limited and once you got your share there was not enough to go around. Each pasta ticket was for a specific restaurant, however amidst the commotion no one was checking. So as long as you gave up a ticket you were good.
These pastas were exclusive to and only available during this event. Each of the four restaurant with their own type of pasta, each offering 1-2 options to choose between.
Pax Romana had little rings of rigatoni dressed in a seaweed pesto with marinated bocconcini, peas, and mushrooms. This was tasty with the fragrant ocean salt and fresh vegetables. I found the rings a fun shape to literally wrap my tongue around.
Livia had either a spaghetti carbonara with tossed with egg, pecorino, and black pepper or a farfalle with tomato, roasted eggplant, basil, and ricotta. Coming with a friend meant I was able to try both. The former was a classic, but on the simple side. My favourite of the two was the farfalle for its texture. This was a giant sheet of pasta that reminded me of a bow tie pasta shape, blown up and enlarged.
Bar Corso had the only meat sauce pastas and was the most popular vendor as a result. The spaghetti beef bolognese was hearty beef and tomato ragù, finished with freshly grated Parmesan. The other option was another spaghetti but dressed with garlic, anchovies, chilli, and capers. Where the first was meaty the second was briney like the sea. Each with its own unique charms.
However, despite there being no substitutions for any of these pastas, and even though most of it was already pre-cooked, with only the need to assemble, the lines grew and guests were waiting 30-45 minutes for their share. The strategy was to get a plate of one and immediately hop into the next line beside it, where you ate as you waited.
This did put a damper on the event and slowed your pace. We even missed the last plate from Nonna’s being full enough and not wanting to wait any more. I wouldn’t expect to wait 45 minutes for my food at a restaurant, so was surprise to have to here.
I would suggest having more than four vendors and four pasta options next year. This is so that guests could choose which 4 restaurants they wanted to try and discover, and have the lines split between 8 stands instead of 4.
By comparison there were five times as many wines and plenty of options to consider, so this area saw no queues. All of which were Italian and included Lambrusco, a chilled sparkling red wine that I found ideal given the hotter day.
When we weren’t waiting and eating pasta we were out getting samples from Bosa Foods. They too had four booths providing a bevy of food samples that included pan fried gnocchi finished in a Parmesan wheel cream sauce, cheese cubes, sheets of prosciutto, and flavoured Italian sodas. The espresso soda was my favourite. They also had cannolis with pipped to order mascarpone filling, but sadly this one came at a cost, so we passed on it as the shells were prepackaged and not fresh.
Instead, we got our dessert from the roaming Folietta team. They had pans of tiramisu and were scooping out cupfuls for event goers. Creamy, fluffy, and chocolatey. Before that they were pouring samples of Cynar, an artichoke amaro, in exchange for tickets.
The “disco” in the event’s name comes from the fact that there is a live DJ and the grassy field the park is on turns into a dance floor, playing upbeat Italian pop. There were also plenty of picnic tables for those who didn’t want to dance and needed a place to rest.
In short, this was a great first run at such an event, and with all their learnings they can only improve on the years to come. Looking forward to another year for Commercial Drive’s first pasta and wine festival.
