Caffè La Tana — Restaurant in Vancouver

La Tana was one of our favorite restaurant for years, but we had the worst dining experience there today ever. I reserved a table for two for my husband’s birthday lunch. We were sat promptly, ordered an americano, latte, glorious green salad, tagliolini, spaghetti & meatballs. Drinks and salad arrived, those were absolutely fine. People who ordered after us, they finished their pasta and ours haven’t even came! The server completely forgot about us, I went in to ask her what took so long, she asked me for what.

We waited and waited, she came out with our pasta. I asked her what took so long, and she said the kitchen missed our order. We began to eat, the tagliolini was delicious with mussels and garlic white wine sauce. Unfortunately the spaghetti in the spaghetti & meatballs was undercooked and chewy. We told the server the spaghetti was undercooked and not al dente. She made it sound like it was already cooked to al dente, and it was our preference to have it cooked longer and softer. She then asked us what do we want, if we want kitchen to cook the same dish again. Uh YES, we had this dish many times, and it was never like this, so heck ya, we want the kitchen to cook it for us again.

So we waited again… finally everything came and tasted how they were supposed to be, but man, we were so friggin pissed! The server apologized, used the excuse of being one man down. But come on, pretty much all restaurants are understaffed these days, and it was not peak times when we went, the restaurant was not busy at all.

We told the server how we are regular customers at Savio Volpe and La Tana, and it’s always our favorite restaurant until today. It was absolutely horrible and unacceptable. She apologized again, compensated our whole meal plus gave us free dessert and a gift card.

I’m not here to get freebies, I just want an enjoyable lunch with my hubby, especially is for his birthday. It left such a sour and bitter taste, even with the gift card, it would take us a long while to go back again.

Time to explore and find our next new favorite...

Our journey to La Tana was a little accident - we were actually looking for a place that has crepes, and somehow ended up looking up La Tana thinking they may have it. We were wrong, but we are so glad we tumbled over here.

Living around Seattle, our trip to La Tana is always about 3 hours to get here. Is it worth the trip? The early morning wake up, the drive, the border crossing? Yes.

This place makes food with love. We once saw Chef Vish come out to the table by the window to take a photo of a dish he just created, and then asked us how that same dish tastes (we were eating it). He then would go on to say how wonderful to cook with those mushrooms he had available, as it was the season for it, and how wonderful it was that they were available within the area. Instantly, it clicked to us that he is serious about his craft.

The place is an ordinary looking neighborhood cafe, it sells many merchandise of small items, bread, imported goods, pasta noodles, coffee, serving like a cafe. Then you have tables and kitchen ready for patrons to dine in on their food, albeit the place is on the small side.

The food, however, is anything but ordinary. It is extraordinary. We came here more than 10 occasions over the span of 3 years traveling back and forth between the border, and they never disappointed us.

They have wonderful selections of food to choose from, their specials change every week and they bring out seasonal dishes to try, we highly recommend them.

We always felt greeted and welcomed, that feeling of belonging there and having a good time enjoying the food was always there, it is remarkable. Often at the level of dining and food you would experience from La Tana, you can often experience some level of formality, or standard procedure sort of dining experience. Not here. We felt like we lived right next door, popping in for our weekend brunch fix.

So if you live nearby and do not have to travel 3 hours to come here, you are lucky. La Tana is a gem that any neighborhood would be lucky to call it a local place. Give...

TLDR; Get the takeout pasta, tiramisu or splurge on appies, but of our 2 pasta mains, one was overcooked and the other undercooked :( service is top-notch though.

My first visit, we bought some fabulous takeout handmade spaghetti. Unfortunately the take-home fridge was empty as they had sold out (5pm on a Tuesday!) But the server was fantastic and got two portions from the kitchen, and the chef out came to advise us how to cook it.

His advised 4 minutes made some perfect al dente pasta and it felt decent value at about $6 / $9 with tip.

But then we came in to eat. The radiatori was overcooked and not Al dente. The stuffed tortellini was too hard around the edges. Tomato vodka sauce was good but nothing to write home about. Same with the sage butter, which I felt was a bit lighter on the sage/could have done with some crunch to offer textural contrast.

However, for appetisers the crostini/whipped ricotta was lovely as was the crispy artichokes and mortedella with generous morels (take 2 pieces of bread, not 4 as we did - it was really too much! Shame the crostini is the same as the focaccia side though)

Turned out the homemade pasta dish we made with their in-house spaghetti was much better than the in-house experience, at a fraction of the cost. Nice cocktails and fantastic service though

We paid about $200 with tip for 2 drinks, 2 appetisers, 2 pasta mains and a shared small tiramisu (which was rich, golden and custardy - great rendition).

I'll take the $9 homemade stuff any day!! Would return to try the happy hour.

I feel Casereccio in Kits is much better value and quality (though the tiramisu here beats...